NORWICH – Earlier this week, the Norwich community and greater Chenango County lost a key player who made it his life's mission to invest back into the community from which he rose, and today a Mass honoring the legacy of Dr. Thomas M. Flanagan will be celebrated at St. Paul’s Church; the Rev. Ralph Bove, pastor, officiating.
While many elders of the Norwich area know of Dr. Flanagan's contributions, few from today's generation are aware that his impact shaped many of the facilities and programs they utilize everyday.
By all accounts, Dr. Flanagan was foremost a loyal husband and father to his wife, Ester and their seven children; but it can be said that closely following his duties as head of home he possessed high regard to serving his community.
One example of how Dr. Flanagan's legacy carries on can be attributed to the success of programing and outreach made available though the Norwich Family YMCA, which he was a very active and involved in.
Serving as a director and later as President of the Board of Directors, Dr. Flanagan knew that the YMCA was crucial to foster a strong community. In 1974, he was elected to the YMCA Board of Trustees and upon his retirement from the Board in 1995 was made a Trustee Emeritus. Likewise,
Dr. Flanagan was the first chairman of the Chenango County Youth Committee; a director of the Norwich Community Chest (now the Chenango United Way) generous supporter of the Little League and Pop Warner football and also established Nursing Scholarships in honor of his uncle, Dr. T.F. Manley and his brother, Dr. James Flanagan.
Given his generous and caring and witty personality, Dr. Flanagan befriended nearly everyone he met, including Frank “King Kong” Mirabito.
“I was very close with Tom's brother Jim, and when he passed I soon became much closer to Tom. We spent many summers playing golf and watching the Notre Dame and Syracuse games,” said Mirabito.
“Tom was a great and generous man who loved his community. He was constantly looking for ways to contribute and did so outwith bragging or boasting about it. Tom was humble and never wanted to be in the spotlight for his work,” Mirabito added.
He was a teacher of the first order and imbued his sons with a love for the outdoors and an appreciation for history, literature and music.
The Flanagan lineage can easily be traced back at least five generations to the Town of Smithville Flats where Dr. Flanagan's great grandfather Michael Flanagan was a blacksmith. History was important to Dr. Flanagan, and thus a relationship and interest with the Chenango Historical Society
“Tom was instrumental in execution of the James S. Flanagan Research Center, which was named in honor of his father,” said James Dunne Sr. “That was what he did; Tom was always looking make the community around him a better place. Tom possessed a very witty and often humorous personality, but he could be very serious if he needed to be.”
Dr. Flanagan, along with his brother, Dr. James Flanagan and Dr. Phil Aronson, were instrumental in building the Medical Arts Building and was credited with bringing medical specialty care to Chenango County. He was a past president of the Medical Staff and a Chief of Surgery and Urology at Chenango Memorial Hospital as well as a consultant surgeon at both Sidney and Walton hospitals. Dr. Flanagan was also a clinical professor in urology at the State University Hospital at Upstate Medical Center.
It's hard to imagine one person doing so much four our community, and the loss of Dr. Thomas Flanagan will reverberate for several years, and Dr. Tom will be missed by young and old. His abiding sense of humor stayed with him until the last, a testament to the joys of love and life.