Carol Flynn

1938-2015

On Monday, March 2, 2015, Carol Joyce Flynn, 76, of Beachwood Drive in Freeland, Wash., died at Providence’s Bethany Care Center in Everett, Wash., following a brief illness and a stroke.

A funeral Mass to honor Carol and her life will take place Saturday, April 11, at St. Hubert Catholic Church in Langley, followed by a reception. Interment will take place at Bayview Cemetery.

Carol was born April 26, 1938, in Eugene, Ore., becoming the third child of Ethel and Charles Remington. She grew up near Blachly, Ore., learning to fish, run, climb and explore the hill country, enjoying her youth with her older brother, Roland, and sister, Barbara, plus a close extended family of cousins.

In 1945, the family moved to Edmonds, Wash., where Carol attended Esperance Elementary and later Edmonds High School. In her sophomore year of high school, she joined the Lake City Civil Air Patrol. During that time, she traveled to Hawaii with the CAP and finished her service as a first lieutenant and adjutant for the Lake City Squadron. Carol earned her high school graduation diploma in 1956 and soon thereafter began working at The Bon Marche in Seattle.

In 1958, Carol met Alex Flynn, and in October they married. The union produced four children, Tony, Rebecca, Chris and Dawn. Early on, the family lived in Machias, Edmonds and in south Seattle before eventually moving in 1964 to a 2-acre farmstead near Langley, Wash., on Whidbey Island.

Carol was a homemaker while the children were young, teaching them through example how to balance hard work and responsibility with fun times. She made certain homework was finished, the grass mowed, laundry hung on the line, and that the chores were completed, but she also climbed trees, played ball, went swimming at Goss Lake, took the kids fishing, and, in the blue-law days when everything shut down on Sundays, loaded up the car and went on family outings to Fort Casey, Keystone Beach or Double Bluff. Many summer weekend evenings were spent with the family crammed into the station wagon watching a movie double-feature at the Blue Fox Drive-In.

She was an integral part of the independent rural newspaper route Alex operated for the Seattle Times, working as bookkeeper and substitute driver on occasion. As the children grew older, Carol looked for work outside the home. This included a stint as a food server at a Langley restaurant and 30 years with the Island County Meals-on-Wheels program, organizing the driver fleet, ordering supplies and helping prepare daily meals and serve lunch to the clients.

Carol was very creative, and she particularly enjoyed crafts, often making by hand Halloween costumes for the kids in their younger trick-or-treat years, sewing pajamas for the children each year and creating a variety of craft works using elements she found at her disposal. She was also environmentally conscious before it was cool, always looking for ways to recycle materials. Old coffee cans became slug guards for young tomato plants. Worn-out jeans became cutoffs, and the extra material was used for patches. One year, instead of throwing them away, she collected hundreds of the then-new Styrofoam egg cartons and glued them to the inside of her bedroom wall to both soundproof and insulate the room.

She was also adept at finding solutions to problems as they arose, and fixing things came naturally to her. That was taken to impressive heights in 1965 when more space was needed at the one-bedroom farmhouse. With help from her dad, Carol constructed mostly by herself a new 16-by-16 bedroom addition, which was rolled up to and attached to the existing house.

Through the years, Carol always found a way to attend all the baseball games, cross country meets and music concerts of the children. She was their biggest supporter.

Carol was also a huge supporter of her community, joining early on the South Whidbey PTA and the Ladies Auxiliary at St. Hubert Catholic Church, then working as a vote registrar for Island County for 25 years, assisting with the Happy Hounds 4-H Club and, most lately, volunteering with the South Whidbey Historical Society.

Carol was preceded in death by her parents, Charles and Ethel Jay Remington; her sister, Barbara Jean Kessell; and Alex Flynn.

She is survived by her children, Tony Flynn, of Wittmann, Ariz., Rebecca Flynn, of Everett, Chris Flynn, of Grand Forks, N.D., and Dawn Flynn Ogasawara, of Seattle; as well as grandchildren Shane Flynn, Ian Flynn, Trevor Flynn, Grace Flynn, Samantha Ogasawara and Sierra Ogasawara; and her brother, Roland Remington, of Freeland.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations can be made in Carol’s name to the Island County Senior Center Food Bank’s Meals-on-Wheels program.