Isabel Coogan Flynn
Birth: 14 May 1888, San Francisco, California
Death: 9 Feb 1985, Solano, California
Spouse: William Dennis Flynn
Birth: 2 Jul 1883, San Francisco, California
Death: 24 Dec 1955, San Francisco, California
Marriage: 23 Jan 1910, San Francisco, CA
Children: William Anthony (1912-1988)
Raymond Mark (1915-1994)
Isabel Mary Coogan was born on May 14, 1888, at 82 West Mission Street in San Francisco. It is unclear where the demarcation of East vs. West Mission Street was back then, because the designation no longer exists. Assuming the change occurred about where Mission bends from southwest to due south, the home would have been about 14th Street. She grew up in the Mission District at various locations. She was 19 and living on Jersey Street when her father died.
Little is known of her early life. The family often referred to her as Is. The 1940 US Census shows that she had an 8th grade education like her brothers and Carrie. Only Irene and Hazel went to high school. She must have worked, especially after her father died, but the Langley’s directory did not list women and their occupation unless they were head of household. When her father’s father Thomas Cogan died in 1911, she was singled out in the will, receiving $100 when her siblings were each only given $1. ($1 was not an insult. $1 would have bought a half dozen full meals at the time.) It is unknown what it meant that Is got $100, but it might have been that she was the only one who was married at the time.
Death: 9 Feb 1985, Solano, California
Spouse: William Dennis Flynn
Birth: 2 Jul 1883, San Francisco, California
Death: 24 Dec 1955, San Francisco, California
Marriage: 23 Jan 1910, San Francisco, CA
Children: William Anthony (1912-1988)
Raymond Mark (1915-1994)
Isabel Mary Coogan was born on May 14, 1888, at 82 West Mission Street in San Francisco. It is unclear where the demarcation of East vs. West Mission Street was back then, because the designation no longer exists. Assuming the change occurred about where Mission bends from southwest to due south, the home would have been about 14th Street. She grew up in the Mission District at various locations. She was 19 and living on Jersey Street when her father died.
Little is known of her early life. The family often referred to her as Is. The 1940 US Census shows that she had an 8th grade education like her brothers and Carrie. Only Irene and Hazel went to high school. She must have worked, especially after her father died, but the Langley’s directory did not list women and their occupation unless they were head of household. When her father’s father Thomas Cogan died in 1911, she was singled out in the will, receiving $100 when her siblings were each only given $1. ($1 was not an insult. $1 would have bought a half dozen full meals at the time.) It is unknown what it meant that Is got $100, but it might have been that she was the only one who was married at the time.
William Dennis Flynn was born on July 2, 1883, in San Francisco. He was the third child of Dennis Flynn, a motorman from County Cork, and Catherine Mahoney. William grew up on 26th Street in the Mission and was a high school graduate, probably from Mission High in 1901. According to his WWI draft registration, he was of medium height and stout build, with black hair and brown eyes. His WWII draft registration had him at 5”9” and 160 lbs, with light complexion.
By 1903, he was employed as a butcher and still living with his parents and sisters. By 1905, the family had moved to 2968 Howard Street, near Duboce, in St Joseph’s Parish. They stayed even after the Earthquake and Fire.
Isabelle and Bill married on January 23, 1910, at Mission Dolores Basilica. They moved into 160 Chatanooga, around the corner from the Coogan house on 23nd Street. Bill partnered with William J Flood, Jr, and opened a butcher shop called Flynn & Flood at 3279 – 24th Street. Two years later, Flynn & Flood was no more and the Flynns had moved to 907 Noe Street, at 22nd Street. That was where their first son, William Anthony, was born. Three years later, their second son, Raymond Mark, was born there as well. According the 1930 US Census, there was a daughter named Hannah, who was born in 1918, but there is no other reference to her. This might have been a niece or cousin who lived with them, but she was definitely not a daughter.
By 1917, Bill had switched jobs and was driving a truck for the Weiland Brewery. No doubt Isabel’s uncle Mike Silk got him the job there. With Prohibition around the corner, that job would not last long, though. In 1919, Weiland Brewery closed and Bill became a laborer in a lumber mill for a year before going back to being a meat cutter. They had also moved into Isabel’s childhood home on 23rd Street with her mother and sisters in 1917. They would stay there for the next sixty years.
The 1920s and 1930s were a domestic time of life for the Flynns. They watched and helped their sons grow. Bill walked to work every day at a neighborhood butcher shop. Isabel kept the family home, which was always clean and in top shape. She always served Sunday dinners and often hosted her siblings at the holidays. Though the Depression hit many hard, San Francisco was not as hard hit as other cities due to the bridge building and civic works project. The Flynns were hit less hard than others because Bill kept his meat cutter job throughout. Isabel, always a confident and competent, learned how to do household repairs herself. She also took care of all the finances. She did not really have outside hobbies or interests. The home was her hobby.
In 1932, Isabel’s mother Mary died. None of the siblings seemed to mind that Isabel inherited the house. She had earned it over the years by taking care of the family home and taking care of their mother in her waning years. In 1936, Bill’s mother Catherine passed away as well.
In 1941, Bill took over running Bill Bradford’s car park so that Bradford (as he came to be called to identify him among all the Williams) could go back to ship caulking as the Second World War approached. He would never return to being a butcher. Bill and Isabel watched their young son go off to war in the Pacific and must have waited anxiously everyday for the knock on the door from the War Department that so many of their neighbors received. They watched stars go into many neighborhood windows over the next four years. But they never got the knock and Ray returned whole and unharmed, beyond a bad skin disease that cleared up with time.
Offsetting the stresses of worrying about Ray in the Pacific, the War Years saw Isabel and Bill become grandparents as their son Bill had a daughter (Patricia) in 1940 and a son (Raymond) in 1942.
Bill retired about 1950 because of health issues probably arising from congestive heart failure. Toni remembered Bill as being tall and lean and described him as “a frail-looking gentleman.” Gone was the stout build of 1917 by the time she knew him. She also remembered overhearing quiet phone conversations about “poor Bill.” Isabel cared for him at home for the next several years. On Christmas Eve, 1955, Bill died at St. Luke’s Hospital from a coronary. He was 72 years old. The rosary was held at Carew & English on a Monday night and the mass was held at St. Philip’s Church on Tuesday morning, followed by interment in the Flynn family plot in Holy Cross. His obituary noted that Bill had been an active member of the Holy Name Society at St. Philip’s. As part of his legacy, most members of the family received one of his butcher knives.
Bill had been a very gentle and genial person and Isabel looked out for him like a watchdog. As he got older, she recognized his limitations and shouldered more of the burden to alleviate his pain. After he passed, Isabel remained a widow for the next 30 years, just as her mother had when William Cogan passed.
Around the time that Bill took ill, Isabel got a job down the hill from the house at the Mercury Pharmacy (1201 Church Street) where she served at the beauty section for the next 20 years. She walked to and from work every day, just as Bill had. For much of her career there, she worked for Robert and Evelyn Pattison, who had lived in the neighborhood and opened the store at the end of the War. Toward the end of her time, the store was owned and operated by Kern Lee and Calvin Chow. She finally retired in 1975, at the age of 87.
Isabel was always independent and took care of everyone and everything herself. Because she had always been physically active walking to work and doing jobs around the house, she did not develop arthritis later in life like some of her siblings. The two gentlemen next door looked in on her and let her son Bill know if there was a problem. There rarely was.
One day, Bill came to visit and found her on a scaffold painting the ceiling. She was in her mid-80s. He exploded. So did she, because his angry outburst had almost caused her to fall off the scaffold. Bill and his brother decided she needed to be in a safer environment. They sold the house and Isabel moved in with Ray in Vallejo. She became an active member of St. Basil’s Parish for the next eight years.
Ray and his wife Florence often took care of their granddaughter, Sarah Anne, and Sarah became Isabel’s delight. Toni Lynn remembered seeing them together, noting the juxtaposition of the beginning and end of life and the joy Isabel got from just sitting and watching her great granddaughter play.
In 1985, Isabel passed away. At 97 years old, she was the longest-lived of the descendants of John and Bridget Silk. When she died, she had six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren with an eighth on the way. The rosary and requiem mass were held in Vallejo. The mass was at St. Basil’s Church, followed by a long drive to Colma where she was interred in the Flynn family plot with her husband and her sister Carrie.
Around the time that Bill took ill, Isabel got a job down the hill from the house at the Mercury Pharmacy (1201 Church Street) where she served at the beauty section for the next 20 years. She walked to and from work every day, just as Bill had. For much of her career there, she worked for Robert and Evelyn Pattison, who had lived in the neighborhood and opened the store at the end of the War. Toward the end of her time, the store was owned and operated by Kern Lee and Calvin Chow. She finally retired in 1975, at the age of 87.
Isabel was always independent and took care of everyone and everything herself. Because she had always been physically active walking to work and doing jobs around the house, she did not develop arthritis later in life like some of her siblings. The two gentlemen next door looked in on her and let her son Bill know if there was a problem. There rarely was.
One day, Bill came to visit and found her on a scaffold painting the ceiling. She was in her mid-80s. He exploded. So did she, because his angry outburst had almost caused her to fall off the scaffold. Bill and his brother decided she needed to be in a safer environment. They sold the house and Isabel moved in with Ray in Vallejo. She became an active member of St. Basil’s Parish for the next eight years.
Ray and his wife Florence often took care of their granddaughter, Sarah Anne, and Sarah became Isabel’s delight. Toni Lynn remembered seeing them together, noting the juxtaposition of the beginning and end of life and the joy Isabel got from just sitting and watching her great granddaughter play.
In 1985, Isabel passed away. At 97 years old, she was the longest-lived of the descendants of John and Bridget Silk. When she died, she had six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren with an eighth on the way. The rosary and requiem mass were held in Vallejo. The mass was at St. Basil’s Church, followed by a long drive to Colma where she was interred in the Flynn family plot with her husband and her sister Carrie.
Toni Lynn remembered Isabel as a small, upright woman who was the one to hold the house and family together, while still working a fulltime job into her eighties. After her brother Bill died, she called his wife Eda everyday to make sure she was okay. She always made time for people. She even kept up the entries in the family Bible. She was a loving wife and mother who was strong for everyone around her.