Marjorie Ann Dennis was born in Rumford, Maine, on October 7, 1923. Following In the footsteps of her older brother and sister who were already serving as an air transport pilot and nurse, respectively, Marjorie enlisted in the WAVES in late fall of 1943, after graduating from Westbrook Junior College in Portland. She attended boot camp at the U.S. Naval Training Center at Hunter College in the Bronx, N.Y., and served 2-1/2 years as a gunnery instructor at the Pensacola and Banana River Naval Air Stations in Florida.
It was in Florida that she met Dennis G. Flanagan, a sailor who was also stationed there. Following her discharge in 1946, she and Dennis married in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where he was attending the United Airlines field engineer school. They had two sons: Kevin and Brian. The family lived for 10 years in Paris, France, in the 1960s as part of Mr. Flanagan’s work with Sperry Gyroscope (later Sperry Flight Systems), and then settled in Scottsdale, Arizona, following the family’s return to the United States. Marjorie Dennis Flanagan passed away there on November 30, 2000 at age 77, outliving her husband by nearly two decades.
Marjorie was always proud of her service and shared a number of memories. But the one that always stuck with her son Kevin was her recollection of how hard it was sometimes to sign off on her students’ training, knowing that her signature put the boys one step closer to combat.
This remembrance provided by her son, Kevin Flanagan.
Photos of Marjorie Dennis Flanagan during World War II:
(Click thumbnails to view full photo in slideshow)
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