ELIZABETH VIRGINIA FLANNAGEN CULLEN

ELIZABETH VIRGINIA FLANNAGEN CULLEN AGE 79

WILLIAM P. “BILL” FRANK TRIBUTE

The Morning News reports Mrs Cullen died last night in a West Chester home .

She was for 35 years a new reporter for the News Journal newspapers.

Until 1966 she was still writing special articles out of the Lewes &

Rehoboth area. She was a Rehoboth resident until 1967 when because of

her advancing age she move to West Chester to live with her daughter and

son in law, Mr. & Mrs. Thomas Ryan at 429 North Church Street. Later

she moved to the Brandywine Hall in West Chester.

While a correspondent for Rehoboth Mrs Cullen covered storms and many ship wrecks and was a history authority. During the 1934 January blizzardwhen telephone and telegraph wire were out she and Richards Roberts set up a amature radio station in an abandoned chicken shed to keep contact with Wilmington newspapers, and despite the low 10 degree temperature scurried about gathering news.

With her knowledge of the shore and her persistence she went aboard tug boats going to assist ships in distress.

Mrs Cullen wrote folklore and history of Lewes and Rehoboth. She was known to be an authority on the DeBraak ship wreck.

Elizabeth Virginia Flannagan was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, daughter of Broadaus an Lottie Goodyear Flannagan.

In 1913 she and Joseph Cullen were married in Brooklyn and divorced 11 years later. She lived in Columbia, South Carolina where she

was secretary to two governors , Robert Cooper and Wilson Harvey, and

in 1923 in Savannah she worked for a U. S. Attorney and until 1931 was on

staff of Savannah Morning News, until she moved to New Castle to live

with a sister, Mrs Lewis Booker and wrote about New Castle, Delaware

City, Middletown and St. Georges. She then moved to Lewes to be the

regular correspondent and in 1943 moved to Rehoboth. Mrs Cullen was a

Associated Press representative for Baltimore, Philadlelphia and New York.

She also was a writer for the WPA and the Delaware Guide.

A Lewes project she did was restration of the Pilot Town Fountain

of Youth and use of the Quakertown name. Active in the Red Cross, Lewes

Cotillion, Soroptimist and all Saints Episcopal of Rehoboth.

Besides her daughter she is surviced by two granddaughters , one great

grandaughter, two brothers Eric Goodyear Flannagan & Oscar Broadus

Flannagan both of North Carolina. Funeral was private.