There was an annual ritual for Charles Giuliano to drive his mother, Dr. Josephine Rita Flynn, from a condo in Palm Beach to her summer home in Annisquam, Massachusetts. During one such trip, on May 5, 1986, Charles turned on a tape recorder. Over the next few days he created six hours of interviews. In addition to tales of his mother’s remarkable life and career, they discussed her maternal family, the Nugents of Rockport’s Beaver Dam Farm where her immigrant grandparents, Patrick and Mary Nugent, raised a family of nine sons and four daughters. Patrick left Mary a widow at fifty in 1900. In 1913 there was the tragic loss of two sons in accidents and a daughter through TB. Until his land was seized by the City of Gloucester, pig and dairy farmer George Nugent owned all of Good Harbor Beach. His former property is now Old Nugent Farms, a condo community. The road between Gloucester and Rockport is still known locally as Nugent Stretch. Interviews with his mother form the spine of this book. The story of Dr. Josephine Rita Flynn’s career as a family doctor has been extended to include stories of her three siblings: Arthur Flynn, a federal judge, Mary Flynn Sullivan, an administrator at Harvard Business School, and James Brother Flynn an executive with Smith, Kline and French pharmaceuticals. There are interviews with Flynn family members as well as Carol Nugent Harris of Atlantic City and Brian Nugent. The New Jersey clan were contractors for Atlantic City casinos. This publication includes sections of Nugent and Gloucester Poems extending a collection of verse. The first volume, Shards of a Life, was launched at Edith Wharton’s The Mount in 2014. That title was followed by a debut of Total Gonzo Poems at Williams College in 2015, and Ultra Cosmic Gonzology during a residency at Gloucester Writer’s Center in 2016.
