Elaine Walser Flanagan was born in Syracuse, New York on August 30, 1917: Frederick, Joyce and Richard. Elaine attended St. Vincent DePaul School on Hawley Avenue in Syracuse. Her family home was at 208 Rugby Road and was built by the family in the early 1920's in a charming neighborhood on the north side of the city of Syracuse. Elaine's father was a sculptor and operated a family granite company (Walser Brothers which later became Walser Granite Company at 1152 Grant Bouldvard). Three generations of Walsers erected beautiful cemetery memorials and civic monuments and statues all over the Syracuse area and even in Utica. Elaine actually began operating the business alone at the age of 17 when her father became ill with tuberculosis and was confined to a sanitorium during the Depression years. Elaine saved the business and won praise in a full page article in the Herald American in 1939. She sacrificed her dream of earning a fine arts degree at SU in order to remain home to support her family. She operated the business until 1944 when she married James Manley Flanagan, MD. He was from Norwich and this is where he and Elaine eventually settled. The adopted one son from the House of Providence (James) and had three natural children (Mary Kay, Mark and George. Elaine was a homemaker but did sell cemetery memorials from a small business in Norwich. Her life changed forever when Dr. Flanagan suddenly died of a heart attack on November 25, 1965 (Thanksgiving morning). Within in six months, she decided to raise her children in the Syracuse area and moved her family to Manlius in 1966. Active in many clubs and civic groups, Elaine once again took over Walser Granite Company during an illness suffered by her brother, Richard, who had been operating the company. Elaine restored the quality to the products and restored the business to the levels of respect it commanded in the years prior to her brother's illness. By 1974, she sought personal change and sold Walser Granite to Robert Allain. She returned to Norwich and bought a house on Hayes Street, just one block west of where she and her husband an lived early in their marriage. Elaine operated a small granite business on East Main Street. She enjoyed her cottage on Chenango Lake and attended all of the local field trials, skeet shoots etc at the Lost Pond Club, In the spring of 1988, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer which is a terrible diagnosis. Elaine accepted the reality of the disease and died on September 12, in her own home on Hayes Street with her children by her side. She was buried several days later on the Flanagan/Manley lot in St. Paul's Cemetery in Norwich.