Joan Beesley

Joan Flynn Beesley was born in 1946 in Brooklyn, New York and has had a lifelong fascination with her great-grandfather, Michael Flynn, the “Scrapman of Brooklyn” and the empire he built.

“I spent my summers in Brooklyn, at 587th 5th Street, near Grand Army Plaza and Prospect Park. We were the Flynns, my father being Edward Flynn who went to St. Saviors's and later Brooklyn Prep, then King's Point. He was born in 1928. My grandmother shopped on 7th Avenue.

My family is originally from County Leitrim and my mother, Joan Flynn, opened 7 "Irish Emerald" stores in Cleveland, the first of its kind to both import Irish goods and teach about the Irish traditions. Danny Green, of the movie, "Kill the Irishman", once came into her shop, insisting she order IRA rings!

My first novel “40 Shades of Green: The Flynn Saga” is the story of an immigrant who arrived with nothing, rising from “Junkman” to industrial millionaire. Michael Flynn came to America at age three in 1854, rising from a scrapman on Amity Street (lots of Flynns lived there!), collecting hawsers from the immigrant ships, starting a business at Columbia and Congress a block from the East River, and eventually buying the legendary David E. Lupton and Sons window company during the Great Depression. He shrewdly dismantled scrapped "L" trains, many WWI and WWII destroyers and even bought the Normandy and other ships from the Navy and then sold them back to the Brooklyn Navy yard for salvage!

An active member of the old Brooklyn “6th Ward”, he was "A friend to statesman and politicians", and his obituary in 1944 mentions ties to members of the notorious Democratic Brooklyn Ring including James Kane, James Dunne, James Enis, Michael Coffey and State Senator Bart Cronin. He was a lifelong member of The St. Patrick’s Society of Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Lodge of Elks, the Emerald Association and The Knights of Columbus. His company, The Michael Flynn Manufacturing Company, continued by his sons, installed the windows in many New York City sky-scrapers, becoming global, and eventually helped build the Panama Canal. At one time his company was the third largest metal company in the United Sates after Alcoa and Reynolds Aluminum. There were so many stories!”

Joan currently lives in Denver, Colorado with her husband, Ed Beesley, children Robert, Rosemary and Kimberly and grandchildren Tyler, Dillon, Ellen and Ashleigh. She is a graduate of The College of New Rochelle in New York, John Carroll University in Cleveland and did work towards her Ph.D in Literature at the University of Denver. Other books by Joan include “Hot House Flowers : I Just Wanted to Be Here When You Called My Name”, a novel about a pediatric bone marrow transplant miracle and “Lot’s Wife”, a collection of poetry, both soon to be published on Kindle.