Remembering Maggie
8/30/2024

Dan and I (The Flanigan family) are overwhelmed and comforted by the outpouring of love and support that we have experienced in the last two weeks. Thank you all for coming to celebrate Maggie with us! We love you all so much!

Margaret “Maggie” Woodhull Flanigan was a long-awaited rainbow baby who roared onto the scene 3 weeks early because she was not going to be a Gemini! Despite her tiny size, she thrived. She was introduced to sailing at 5 weeks old due to both of her parents’ and families’ involvement and never stopped loving the sport whether planning an event, running race committee, teaching, coaching, or competing on the water, she was all in!

Maggie launched into language in full paragraphs at age 2 and had an eidetic auditory memory. After one hearing of a song, she would know all words and melody and found great joy in singing. This quality also made her an incredible historian and trivia team member and made her the go-to for recalling and sequencing life events.

Her fashion sense was evident as soon as she could dress herself and creative combinations of colors and patterns prevailed. She loved pretending, music and singing. From early on, she had a passion for everything fairy tale and Disney! She researched and read at least 6 versions of Cinderella alone. She always enjoyed dressing up as all of the princesses.

We learned in elementary school that she was dyslexic and dysgraphic. With these challenges, Maggie and I became best friends in addition to being her mother. She was brilliantly smart, trying desperately to make her brain learn like everyone else and was able to incorporate strategies that helped her to learn to read sparking a lifelong passion. She was drawn to historical fiction with brave heroines and Harry Potter.

She joined the Brownies in elementary school and completed a Gold Award for creating a library in a West Baltimore shelter as a senior in high school.

Maggie attended the Performing Arts Magnet school program as a middle schooler where she blossomed in their Wishing Star theater launching her passion for all things theater! She performed with Lorenzo’s Dinner Theater in Timonium from age 15 then Charm City, Third Wall Productions, Fells Point, and other community theater organizations. She was thrilled to be a founding member of the Guerilla Theater Front which produced Lizzie to great acclaim including a Costuming award! The following year was a repeat with recognition for costuming Rocky Horror Show.

She graduated from Loch Raven High School in 2008 where she was part of the Chorus, Women’s Chorale and Drama Club. She played Marian the Librarian in the Music Man during her senior year and reprised the role a decade later with Third Wall. She was selected for All-County and All-State Choruses leading to performing with the BSO and a 150 voice choir.

In determining where to study and major, she would remark that, “You and Dad are just way too interesting”, feeling that this was a daunting responsibility. She attended Indiana University of Pennsylvania majoring in nursing with minors in psychology and choral music. She was always a healer and fixer but the expectation for her to succeed in a required Logic Class was the last straw for her neuro diverse brain. Her choral music involvement led to opportunities to explore myriad composers and she had the privilege of premiering works written for the IUP chorus. While there, she helped to start a Sailing Club and Jazz performing group. She loved being a Delta Omicron fraternity member.
Personal loss and grief shaped her life with over 20 losses in her 34 years. Especially difficult were the deaths of her 18 and 25 year old cousins. The first occurred during her freshman year at IUP from which she had largely recovered when, upon returning to school in the fall, her choral music professor was dying of cancer in front of her. This truly fractured her and she was not able to continue with school after a couple of semesters.

She returned home and volunteered at Sheppard Pratt Health System where I worked. Her ability to learn quickly combined with her interpersonal charm made it easy for her to be hired into a more permanent role. She also got great satisfaction out of her involvement with Special Olympics Sailing where she officially volunteered for 20 years though she was present from the age of 5. It took her to LA for the 2015 games where one of the MD athletes competed as a single-handed racer, a first for MD and the USA!

She left healthcare during the pandemic and became a seamstress. Her career ended at Quantum Sails in Annapolis where she took her love of theater and sewing and merged it with her passion for sailing.

In October 2023, she won an award for a Sunshade that she assisted to design and fabricate for the foredeck of a maxi yacht. The award was for the Unusual Canvas Project. Since Quantum won that category, it was entered into a best overall category, which was also won. There were 10-12 categories ranging from canvas covers to enclosures to non-marine, to interior and exterior upholstery, all of which had amazing projects submitted. The shade won best overall out of all the categories.

Maggie was an incredibly capable, talented and multidimensional woman who loved her people, pets, trivia, sailing, sewing, acting, singing, laughing, bonfires, marshmallows and potatoes in any form. Maggie’s greatest joy was her enormous extended family into which she welcomed her network of friends. If you became her friend, you would never be alone. She had been hurt many times which made trust difficult and made her more compassionate and empathetic when she connected. She’ll be remembered for her genuine kindness and ability to make you feel like you’d known each other forever, her amazing sense of fashion and ability to dress anyone, her bright presence in any setting, her devotion to all she loved human and other, her angelic voice, deep spirituality, unforgettable hugs, love of glitter and red lips.

Whether your experience was a minute or a lifetime, she was all in and I dare say that she was also way too interesting!!

What would Maggie want for you now? Follow the advice of Mark Twain who wrote:
“Life is short. Break the Rules. Forgive quickly. Kiss slowly. Love truly. Laugh uncontrollably. And never regret anything that makes you smile!”

Don’t give up – be like her and rise like a phoenix once more.
Sing, laugh and play!
Enjoy nature!!
Be kind to each other and always make time to really listen and support one another.
Hug like you mean it!
Eat the ice cream and wear the glitter – life is short

She left as unexpectedly as she arrived - blazing a trail of new adventures!

I miss her. though I feel her presence every moment and she is sending me manifestations to raise my spirits. She was my best friend in addition to being an amazing daughter.


Maggie Flanigan Sailing Bio 2020

I was born in Baltimore, Maryland into a family of sailors, so sailing is in my blood. I learned to walk on a cruise from the Chesapeake Bay to Long Island Sound. My sailing involvement has mostly been cruising and sailing for fun with family with an occasional inshore race thrown in until college when I started teaching and coaching. I am the third generation female sailor with an incredible legacy started by my grandmother who founded a community sailing program and raced a Sabre 34 until she was 94 years old!

My love of coaching started when I began working with Special Olympics Sailing, a program that was started by my parents in the early 80's. As a unified partner, I loved watching my athletes’ skills develop as they learned the in and outs of sailing. As a certified Sailing Instructor, I taught all levels at Baltimore County Sailing Center and coached for the race team for 5 years.

While I was never a big racer myself, I have a passion for Race Committee. I grew up watching my mother run races as a PRO for Special Olympics and Hobie events. At 15, I started scoring events and eventually started working towards my Club Race Officer credentials.
Race Committee member since 2000
Volunteer for Maryland Special Olympic Sailing for 25 years
Special Olympic Maryland Sailing Championship Regatta Management Team member since 2005
Supported Maryland Special Athlete, Terrel Limerick, who competed at the 2015 Special Olympics World Games in LA as the first ever US Level 5 (single handed) sailor
Awarded by Baltimore Independent Theater Review as Best Costumes in a show in 2018 and 2019 with collaborators and the only two time winner.
Sang in World Premier of "Canticle Voce Cadentes" commissioned for the 9/11 10th anniversary written and conducted by Dr. Jack Stamp
Sang in East Coast premiers of "In Pace" by Jeffrey Parola and "Opus 82: Nanie for four hand piano and SATB Choir by Brahms" conducted by Vance George.