Longevity: Mary Aretha Johns and Lester Arthur Flynn

The Nebraska State Journal.
Sunday, April 2, 1939, pg. D6.

This week's #52ancestors prompt is longevity. Of course, a long life is what immediately comes to mind for most people when they think of longevity. It also refers to a long continuance, or permanence and durability.¹

Not many of my ancestors had longevity, in the traditional sense. Oh, there were plenty who lived well into their eighties, and just a few into their nineties. None, that I have encountered so far, that broke the century mark!

So, my thoughts turned in a different direction to long and durable marriages. Mary Aretha Johns and Lester Arthur Flynn immediately came to mind because of this wonderful newspaper account I found in a Nebraska newspaper. It detailed so many extended family members who had gathered for a fiftieth-anniversary celebration for Mary and Lester in 1939. Of course, it also perpetuated a few errors, as well!

For many years this newspaper article was as close to a possible marriage date for Mary and Lester I was able to get. Eventually, the actual marriage record would be added to Ancestry.com's collection.² Seeing the record solved a long-standing mystery, namely where the name of Mary Keely had originated for Mary's mother. Unfortunately, Keely was not Mary's mother's maiden name, but it would take years, serendipity and the intersection of several people's research to confirm it was actually Grainger.

Marriage record for Lester Arthur Flynn and Mary Johns, 23 March 1889, Seward, Nebraska.

The other reason Mary and Lester quickly came to mind, is the wonderful pair of bookend photographs I have of them that illustrate that fifty-year span. I don't know the exact date of the photo on the left, but it was likely fairly early in their marriage. The photo on the right is Mary and Lester in 1939. Within a couple of years of their Golden Anniversary, Mary and Lester would move to California to be nearer to their son, Arthur. Mary died in 1945 and Lester in 1951.^3,4 Both are buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, in Glendale, one of the first cemeteries to the stars!

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References:

1. Merriam-Webster Dictionary: longevity.
2. Nebraska, Marriage Records, 1855-1908. Ancestry.com. 
3. Mary Aretha Johns Flynn, 1871-1945. Find A Grave.com.
4. Lester Arthur Flynn, 1866-1951. Find A Grave.com.