Grace Muller Flanagan

Grace Rita Muller Flanagan passed away on August 18, 2020 from natural causes. She was born and raised in New Orleans, the daughter of Guy Joseph Muller (a corner grocer) and Leonie (née Wolpern) Muller. She was 94 at the time of her death.

Educated in the New Orleans Public School System, she was the first female in her line of ancestry to attend and graduate from college. She obtained a baccalaureate degree in biology from Loyola University which she gainfully used to become employed as a medical technologist in the bacteriology laboratory of Dr. Norman Schwartzwelder at the LSU School of Medicine on Tulane Avenue. It was at Loyola that she was introduced to her husband William Patrick Flanagan, Sr.

Grace participated in PTA meetings, carpooling the children to school as they were growing up and held a weekly women’s bridge club game at her house for many years. She was an excellent and champion bridge player coming to know many of the shining lights in the field and playing in large tournaments with many of the best bridge minds in this country and internationally.

Her husband Bill was a successful salesman and while still in the first years of their marriage, the family was transferred to Birmingham, Alabama, where the appearance of the Flanagan’s who drank beer at their meals and ate fish on Fridays made for interesting looks and conversations in the Bible Belt.

Coming from a large family with many business connections, family get-togethers sometimes saw a Mayor of the city saying hello at Thanksgiving. And family meals at major feast days and holy days sometimes were enlivened by the unexpected, such as Grandma Muller’s dentures clattering onto the table after laughter erupted over a ribald joke poking good fun at family differences. And watch out the birdshot in the duck on your plate!

After the children were grown and on their way, Grace fulfilled her lifelong wish to own her own store much like her father who had his own corner grocery in the City Park area. Opening up a shop in the Magazine Street area, she specialized in antiques and nick-nacks calling her place “Flings from Flanagan”.

The last years of her life were filled with physical challenges but never breaking her joie de vivre and she was a real cat lover who always found room in the house for a stray.

She was a loving daughter of the Church saying her Rosary every day and obtaining the sacraments regularly even when she became home-bound. The lessons of religion were passed onto her children who looked upon her as the moral guidepost in the family such that sometimes it appeared she could read hearts inspiring the children to learn quickly that it paid to think good thoughts or better not think at all.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Bill, in 2007 after 57 years of marriage. She is survived by her children and spouses: William Patrick Jr. (MD) and Marcy (MD), Guy (Debbie), and Carol (Jeff). Also surviving are her older sister, Marian, in Dallas, eight grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.

Special thanks are given to Dr. Alan Yager, Mr. Kenneth Washington and most of all to her daughter, Carol Grace, without whose tender loving care and great sacrifice Grace could not have lasted so long.

Relatives and friends are invited to attend the Requiem Mass at Our Lady of Grace Roman Catholic Church, 2552 Kentucky Ave. in Kenner, on Monday, August 31, 2020 at 11:00AM. A visitation will be held at the church beginning at 9:00AM. Interment will follow at Lake Lawn Park.

Donations to Little Sisters of the Poor, Epilepsy Foundation or Autism Foundation preferred in lieu of flowers.

To view and sign the guest book, please visit www.lakelawnmetairie.com