Sharon Flynn seems like an ordinary Secaucus resident. She is a member of the local Rotary Club and participates in events such as the Library and Business Resource Center’s Resident Art Show. In fact, recently, she exhibited five dresses that she had sewn together, either from scratch or by altering previous garments.
One would never guess that this 72-year-old woman has lived in four different countries, was valedictorian of both her high school and college, married an opera star, adopted two children, ran her own business, and only recently has begun studying to be a paralegal.
“It’s funny; two or three years ago, a friend gave me a copy of ‘China Hands’ by James Lilley,” said Flynn. “It caught my attention because the first third was just as though I had written my autobiography, except for gender.”
Serendipitous China
Flynn’s father was one of 11 sons who were born in America to Irish immigrants. He and his youngest brother were the only ones in the family to attend college. After receiving a degree from M.I.T., he began to work for the oil company Texaco. From there he went to work for their overseas market in China.
Her mother has an interesting history too. She grew up in the South and attended Pomona College in California. “She was the president of her class and she also was president of the Associated Women Students of the State of California,” said Flynn.
In 1928, her mother’s senior year, a friend’s brother had asked that she accompany the friend to China and stay for a while to teach at missionary schools. Her mother met her father at a party.
“That was love at first sight,” Flynn said.
Not wanting to be pressured into marriage, her mother went back to the United States for a while, where she was a nanny for the family of film director Berthold Viertel. It was here that her mother rubbed elbows with the likes of Greta Garbo and Clark Gable.
Eventually, Flynn’s parents married in Reno, Nev. Three years later, on Sept. 2, 1935, Sharon Flynn was born in Hinkow, China.
Later, her family moved to India, where Sharon first learned dancing, an art that she kept up with most of her life.
Philippines and marriage
After World War II, The Flynn family moved to White Plains, N.Y., so that Sharon’s father could be closer to the Exxon head office in New York. It was there that Flynn became the valedictorian of her high school and then went to the Ivy League Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.
There, she joined the Delta Gamma sorority and was once again valedictorian of her class.
She didn’t stay for long, though, and during her stay at college, she headed over to the Philippines.
While Flynn was island-hopping with another student, she happened to meet up with the governor of one of the Philippines’ southern islands. He offered to take her and her friend on a separate cruise with his Coast Guard down to Borneo.
“The first night out, the Coast Guard officer standing next to me took a bullet between the eyes,” Flynn said.
Since the officer was Muslim, he had to be buried within 24 hours of his death, so the trip was cut short and they returned to mainland.
Flynn and her companion finally reached Borneo and were entertained by true headhunters. Flynn says that she is sure that there was nothing suspect with the food, since those particular practices are solely for ritualistic purposes.
It was also during college that Flynn met her first love.
“My sweetheart was two years ahead of me,” Flynn said. “[Then he] met my father and thought ‘Gee, I’d really love to work for this man.’ ”
In 1958, while in Singapore, Flynn met up with a couple that had known her parents when they had been in the country. The couple’s son had recently eloped, and since they hadn’t been able to throw a party for their own child, they held a wedding for Sharon and her new husband, Dick, instead.
“It was the social event for the Americans that were there that year,” laughed Flynn.
Operaland
Once back in the states, Flynn began teaching biology at a New York school while Dick continued with his work at the oil company. Around this time, he also started taking voice lessons.
Soon afterward, Dick was able to win a contract with a German opera house and Flynn was on the road again.
While spending the majority of a decade in Germany, Flynn was employed by the U.S. Air force European headquarters. She was responsible for editing papers from the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
While in Germany, Sharon and Dick also adopted their two children, Dean and Lona.
Dick’s vocal career failed to reach a peak in the timeframe he wanted, so he opted to go back to work for his previous employer. The entire family moved back to New Jersey in the Sussex County area.
Not long after the move back, Sharon and Dick’s 15-year marriage ended in divorce.
It was while studying to be a minister that Flynn met her second husband, who taught theology at the school she attended. But that marriage fell through when Flynn discovered that he “like to solve things with his fists,” she said.
Growing and expanding
Flynn moved to Secaucus in 1984.
With the children growing up, she knew she needed a steady job. After taking an aptitude test, she decided to go into computers. She stayed in the field for the past few years.
During this time, Dean and Lona, now knowing that they were adopted, attempted to find their birth mothers. With the help of Sharon and the German government, each child succeeded. Both Dean and Lona have met their birth mother at least once.
“That was the social adventure of my life,” said Flynn. “The expanding of the families through the adoption reunions.”
And…action!
Once things started to settle down, Flynn was recruited to help in the creation of a movie. She had never done anything of the sort, but decided to give it a try. The movie fell through, but the distributor of the film had said that he liked her work so much that he wanted to continue working with her. After two years, they had made another film about parenting in times of crisis.
However, it soon became evident to Flynn that she had essentially been robbed, she said. The distributor had scammed her out of her $350,000 life savings.
Around the same time, her IT job got outsourced to India. The irony of losing her job to someone in the place she once lived made the experience laughable for her.
Despite her joviality and zest for life, Sharon Flynn did undergo a time of hardship where she was near poverty, she said.
“Can you believe I was on a soup line?” she asked.
Then, “like manna from the sky,” as she put it, a member of the Secaucus Rotary Club gave her a phone call and said that they needed someone with all of her skills and training in his law office.
“I said, I’m all things you need, but you’ll have to pay,” Flynn said.
Flynn has been a member of the Rotary Club for almost two decades now.
Now, with her children and their families in Pittsburgh, Pa. and the island of St. Thomas respectively, she is just beginning to pursue her paralegal degree.
With all of the places she has lived throughout her life, Flynn says that Secaucus has become her home.
“It’s been home for the past 20 years, and it grows more and more so each day,” she said.