Beverly A. Flynn
R.I.P
(9.30.1944-1.4.2013)
The Best Customer I ever had that distributed my signs and art used to just point out a few things she liked and then
TURN ME LOOSE!
I paint better when I am not pinned down to instructions and a lot of different notes to
follow. I get lost when that happens.
My best work comes from just
Painting from my heart!
I want to remember that special customer and honor her by telling you more about our friendship.
Her name was Beverly Flynn.
Oh how we used to laugh together. I met Beverly at the Scarecrow festival in
Chappell Hill, Tx.
I was selling my signs/paintings in my booth at the festival, and someone from her shop talked to me about selling wholesale to Beverly’s shop.
I was tickled to take all my leftover inventory and sell it to Beverly. I was a single parent of a baby boy and I didn't know how I was going to
take care of him.
Not long after I started selling to Beverly, I had the opportunity to move to Chappell Hill. It was wonderful. I could take my wares down to Beverly's shop in a wagon! I needed to be there!
Beverly and I would talk on the phone often. She worked in Houston during the week so she only had the shop open on the weekends. During the Bluebonnet Festival and the Scarecrow Festival, it was the busiest and largest crowd that ever attended an arts and crafts show. The streets would be full of shoppers, you couldn't even move down the street. This was in the early 90's. They had the best vendors from all over with Quality hand made goods.
Beverly would call me from work and we would discuss her next order. When she asked me how the current order was going, I told her, "Well, I started this batch (first step) and then I finished startin' them, then I moved on to the finishing steps." This is how mass production assembly line work goes.
You would have to hear our conversation to realize how funny we were. We laughed at the silliest things. Beverly was so witty!
I would be on the phone with her and my son (a toddler going thru the terrible 2's) would be doing something annoying, and she would hear me Y E L L at him, then I would come back to the phone and talk very calmly, and tell her I was sure I was getting the
MOTHER of the YEAR AWARD!
Later I relocated to Franklin, Tx.,(a Man was involved-David Wymola) but still hauled my wares to Chappell Hill, and sometimes the Flynns would make a trip to Franklin.
Things changed in Chappell Hill, and Beverly and her husband moved to Liberty, Tx. She opened a shop there called Beverly's Then and Now. I sold a ton of stuff to her over the years, she had the cutest shop you've ever seen. She was so good at knowing what to buy to sell to folks. While they lived in Liberty, I stayed at their home for 4 days and painted her entire kitchen in Chickens on every cabinet door. I painted 36 chickens in all. It was very Chickeny! See photos of the Chicken Kitchen>>>>click the picture.>>>
My husband was forced into early retirement in 2000, (age 50) so we had the opportunity (forced)to move around. We bought and sold property just to survive (there went our dreams) and ended up in Brenham, Tx.
(HOME of Blue Bell Ice Cream)
I always liked Brenham, it's a great city, between Austin and Houston, Texas.
Brenham was great for my son who started high school there. That was our main reason for moving to Brenham, so my son Jacob could get help with his ADHD. They have better resources than Franklin, Tx. School.
During the trauma of Hurricane Katrina and Rita in 2005 the Flynns were flooded out of Liberty, and had no place to go. They asked if we knew of any vacancies available in Brenham. My husband, David was working at the Brenham State School and he could not even get home 1.5 miles away because the roads were jammed with traffic for miles and miles from people leaving the Houston and Galveston area and surrounding areas. I had to take a back road from our house and he had to park his truck and leave it on the side of the road. Of course, there were NO vacancies anywhere. People were having to sit in their cars and wait for traffic to move. What kind of friend would I be not to say 'Come stay with us'? Beverly had been stricken with Polio as a child and she had become wheelchair confined, so I didn't know how we could manage getting her into the bathroom and stuff. They had a cat, and we had a big dog that did not like cats, but she said they would keep the cat in their room and she could walk from her wheelchair to the potty.
So The Flynn's came to our house and we made room for them, they stayed with us for a week. It turned out ok. Her husband Charles had started a Restaurant in their gift shop addition, so he cooked for us all week.
It was then that they got the idea to relocate their shop and move to Brenham, which is not far from their original shop
in Chappell Hill, Tx.
They looked around and found a great location
for their shop, and the house next door was vacant and they rented it. Charles could just take Beverly over in her wheelchair up the sidewalk. The shop was called "Sugardaddy's Bakery and Gift Shop". I painted the windows so cute with Cupcakes and flowers
see the album of photos
from flickr>>>>>>>over in the right column.
Business was good. They thrived there for a while. The gift shop started going downhill along with Beverly's health.
Sadly, there was no business left, and we Moved back to the Roberson County area close to Franklin, where David had two sons and family living close by at the time.
I hate to say that Beverly and I lost touch and she was bed ridden and things got real bad for her. She didn't want company. It was really depressing to see her in that state.
I am ashamed that I didn't keep in touch with Beverly, I don't know why we lost touch.
They had no kids to take care of them. We had 4 between us and they kept us busy.
I had to learn about Beverly's death online from searching the obituaries. She passed away in 2013. Her husband didn't really do things for her and she had one niece that I hope cared for her before she left this earth.
Honestly, I am real bad dealing with losing people and knowing someone is about to pass away is very hard for me to confront them and be strong for them. It's painful. I wish I was better at that sort of thing. I regret not being close with Beverly in her last years. I will always remember her and I hope she somehow knows that I still Love her and think about her. Now in we are in our Senior years, all we have is time to think about things that we were too busy to before.
She was One in a Million!
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