Carole Flynn

Carole Leddy Flanagan Flynn, 58, of South Windsor and West Hartford, CT, passed away on Thursday September 9, 2021. Carole leaves behind her precious son R. Bennett Flynn of Montréal, Quebec and West Hartford, CT. On March 1, 1997, she married Robert Francis Flynn, to whom she was married for fifteen years. Carole was predeceased by her loving mother and stepfather Lorraine Flanagan Barton and Harold Barton. Carole's primary, lifelong dedication was to her family. Carole's other passion, evident to all who entered the house, was decorating. She ran The Elegant Edge, her own antiques business, and knew how to transform the most drabby living space into the most glamorous. Just as she did with our lives. Carole was not only a passionate mother, wife, daughter, and decorator, but an avid writer as well. She graduated with a Master's degree from Wesleyan University in 2008, at which time she met then Senator Obama, whom she greatly admired, and she earned a Bachelor's degree from the University of Connecticut in 2002. She created her own writing company, The Main Idea, teaching at numerous venues including Wesleyan and Storyteller's Cottage. Using her nom de plume of C. Flanagan Flynn or simply "C", Carole wrote, edited, and advised students; her expertise was in such demand that the phone never stopped ringing with calls from her clients. Carole led workshops at Harvard, Yale, Wesleyan, and Trinity while writing pieces that appeared in The New York Times, Memoir Magazine, Brain Child, Brain Teen, The Hartford Courant, and others. She was a Pushcart Prize Nominee and a 2018 Finalist for the Frank McCourt Memoir Prize. She worked for outlets from Weekly Reader and Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia to publishers such as Penguin Random House, to Fortune 500 corporations, to the NHL and NBA. For the past three years, Carole led Wesleyan's Center for Creative Youth, dedicating her expertise to developing the talents of children, just as she had done for Bennett and his classmates throughout their elementary, middle school, and high school careers. She lavished affection on all who knew her, including and perhaps mostly, her Shih Tzu, Rondo. Her family will receive friends during calling hours on Tuesday, September 21, 2021 from 5-8 p.m., at the Samsel & Carmon Funeral Home, 419 Buckland Rd., South Windsor. Services and burial at the West Stafford Cemetery will be private. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to 826 National, the largest youth writing network in the country (https://826national.org/donate/). Please visit www.carmonfuneralhome.com for online condolences.