Obituary of Elwood Flynn

Elwood Floyd Flynn

 

1929  -  2024

 

 

With sadness, the family announce that Elwood Flynn passed away peacefully on Friday, April 26, 2024 at St. Paul’s Hospital.

 

Heartfelt thanks and gratitude is extended to all his caregivers and friends for the care, support and friendship provided and a special thanks to St. Paul Hospital, 7th floor Med for their care and compassion.

 

A private family gathering and cremation will take place in the days ahead. A full Life Celebration for friends, associates and community is being planned to take place at a future date, which will then be announced.

 

Tribute from Jim Mackenzie

 

I had the privilege of growing up across the street from the Èlynn's. The Flynn house was a second home to my Mom and l. Elwood and Joan were fike my adopted parents and Barry and Jeff, brothers in arms. I have so many fond memories ofElwood and cannot begin to articulate his graciousness, kindness, humbleness and class. We celebrated all things large and small with the Flynn's, especially years of spending Christmas's at their home where Elwood and Joan made my Mom and I feel like part of the family as we all gathered for a remarkable day of incredible food, music and friendship. I looked forward every year to sharing that special day with the Flynn's, and recreate that tradition with my own family every year.

Elwood introduced me to jazz and the art he collected and displayed at the house. It was always a learning experience that I cherished. He gave me the insight on each piece of music and harvested my love of art.

Elwood was the clothes horse, and not only educated me on an appreciation of dressing for success, but he did that for Saskatoon and the rest of Canada. Elwood •w^ras recognized as the best haberdashery in Canada. I will say, it was a challenge to go down to the store to get a pair of socks because Elwood was the softest hard sell I have ever met.... and I say that with great admiration! One would go in for a pair of socks and come out with a new suit, tie, shirt — maybe two, a belt, pair of shoes, and yes the socks as well. Elwood was never over or under dressed for any occasion. He always had it just right. Even when he walked his beloved dog Duke, years ago late at night, after a long day at the store, Elwood was dressed the part.

I had the opportunity to speak by phone with Elwood at Christmas this past year and what I thought would be a short conversation ended up being close to an hour. That meant so much to me as I knew he probably wasn't up to it, but that was Elwood. He always had time no matter what. We shared stories about Bate Crescent, jazz, family and life, interspersed with many laughs. I will always treasure that last call. As I look back over the years Elwood was one of the great teachers and influences in my life, I am honored to have called him a great friend and mentor.

Needless to say my memories of Elwood are too many to mention today but he made a lasting impression I will never forget.

We are with you today bound by love and admiration for Elwood. Sharon, Alex, Tori and I send all our love to the Flynn family and know you will cherish the memories of Elwood in this difficult time.

 

Tribute from Donald Wright

Hi Barry,

Lorne gave me your email address, and I just wanted to extend my sincere sympathy on the passing of your Dad.

Elwood truly was one of the good guys. Whenever I ran into him, he was always willing to talk to me, took a genuine interest in how I was doing, and carried himself with such grace and class.

His devotion to his craft - ensuring that his customers left with a suit that would make them look great - was absolutely the best. My Dad bought all of his suits at Elwood Flynn's - I remember going with him to the store that was kiddy corner to the original Bay. When I got married, there was no question but that would get my wedding suit from Elwood. And even though I left Saskatoon, I would use my trips to visit Mom and Dad as an opportunity to add to my wardrobe. I don't need to wear a suit very often anymore, but I still have a dozen of his suits waiting in my closet for the odd event where I will need )ne, I was by no means exceptional - I know there were men from all over North America that would come to see him to be fitted out with a new suit when they were in Saskatoon. Indeed, some came to Saskatoon just to get a new suit or two.

One of my great personal pleasures was when I took my son Duncan in to get a suit from Elwood. We thought having three of Wrights being suited out by him was pretty special. And there was Elwood, now into his 80's, insisting on doing all the measurements himself. It made me wince to see him squat down to be able to get the measurement of Duncan's leg just right, but that was just core to who Elwood was.

He had an incredible eye. He would offer me a look in suits that was right for me. He would show me combinations of suits, ties and shirt colours that I wouldn't have imagined could work. But darn it if they didn't work! He had a sense of style that was captured by an article I read a few months ago about Gary Grant. If you are interested in it I have attached a ink below.

One more story about his integrity and devotion to excellence. One time I had visited him and bought a couple of suits with carefully matched shirts and ties. A couple of weeks later I got a phone call from him in which he explained that he was very disappointed in the one of the shirts that I bought. I am not sure what he found out about it that made him unhappy, but he insisted on sending out a different shirt that met his standards. Such a devotion to serving his clients!

When I heard that he was closing the store. I gave him a call and told him I was very sorry to bear the news, He explained why, said that he had a very good run, and we had a good chat. That was the last time I got to visit with him. I will miss fm.

Sincerely,

Don

 

Tribute from Kent B

First, I would like to thank Barry for extending to me the honor of sharing with you a few memories I have of Elwood on this special day of remembrance.

We all know the extraordinary reputation that Elwood had created in his many decades in the men's clothing industry. You could just say one word, Elwood, in virtually any store or supplier not only in Canada but also in most of the United States, and that would immediately elicit a knowing smile and a nod as people would reflect on some encounter they had with this extraordinary man. I was but one of hundreds of people who had the good fortune to get to know Elwood both professionally and on a very personal level as well, and I would like to share with you three different qualitiesof Elwood that particularly resonate with me.

We all know that Elwood was very much both a night hawk and a lover of jazz music. I lost track of the times that I would have an appointment with him after store closing only to be called by him apologizing that he would be a bit late because of a special customer who had just come in for a fitting and needed to be dealt with, but "don't worry Kent, t will get there" he would tell me. He certainly did keep the appointment and frequently they would start at 10 PM or sometimes even later and carry on until well after midnight. There were times when I just had to get some sleep because of an early appointment the next morning and I would leave him in the showroom as I retired to my bedroom. In the morning, I would wake up with the room meticulously organized and the order left on the table. Atl I could do was once again smile at the latest time spent with Elwood Flynn. I also know that I was not unique in this experience.

 

Now, how does this tie into jazz you would ask? Welt, veryearly in our dealings we discovered that we both shared a real love of this form of music, and I would always have some playing when he came up to our appointments. It was after we found out about our mutual love of this art form that discussions of various artists would become a critical component of our meetings. I was so jealous of the incredible artists that he had gone to see that I could only dream of seeing: Dave Brubeck Quartet with Paul Desmond, Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson, Louie Armstrong, the list goes on and on. The one thing that I did have was their music, first on cassettes and then on CD's. Yes, there was a time when you actually had to carry hard copies of music with you to listen. I would always pick out a couple of classics but then throw in some artist that I thought he might not be familiar with. I should have known better. It was a very rare occasion that he had not heard of that particular artist. I loved it. Listening to jazz, an appointment with Elwood Flynn and doing business in the beautiful city of Saskatoon. It does not get much better.

I would like to end with one particular incident which to me personifies exactly the true nature of the man that was Elwood, an incident with which Barry is very familiar. One lovely summer day when I was in town doing some business, I had the chance to play a round of golf at one of your Lovely golf courses. We were well into the round; I would say the 7^th or 8^th hole, I don't really remember, when I swung particularly hard on my drive. I felt a tweak in my back and as I was walking up the fairway it started to tighten up and get more and more painful. By the time I got the ball onto the green, I could barely bend over to putt, let alone pick up my ball. I had to bail on the rest of the game and have a golf cart haul me off the course back to my car. I was barely able to get back to the hotel and back up to my room. I had an appointment with Elwood that night and I called him to let him know that when he arrived it might take me a bit to answer the door. When he did arrive, I literally had to crawl to let him in as I could barely walk. I worked the appointment, lying on the sofa as Elwood made his choices and when we finished at around 10:30pm, he told me that he was going to take me to the Emergency room at the hospital and that there would be no argument. So off we went, after we arrived, Elwood had a couple of conversations with nurses and a doctor and presto, I was being looked at. The doctor wrote out a prescription and while we were there, Elwood called a friend who owned a pharmacy, and had him go to his store at that time of night so that he could fill my prescription. could not believe what was happening. It was a bit after midnight that we got back to the hotel, he helped me back up to my room and soon I was out tike a light. The next morning, I was starting to feel better but at around 11, Elwood dropped by on his way to the store just to check up on how I was feeling. Such was the measure of this man.

Over the manyyears I have been travelling across all of Western Canada, I have had the privilege of meeting ma ny wonderful people, many of whom I can now call good friends but at the very apex of this list of people stands Elwood Flynn. A man who was not just successful at his business but was a man of honour, integrity, humility and compassion. He will always be remembered and now I know that he is up there somewhere listening to Miles, Sonny, Duke, Oscar, Louie etc. jamming in that big band in the sky.

As a side note, white I was composing this personal tribute, I have been sipping on an excellent dram of Scotch, Highland Park 18 Year. The northern most distillery in Scotland and located on the largest of the Orkney Islands. I am also listening to a particular piece of music we both considered one of the greatest jazz albums of atl time, The Koln Concert by Keith Jarrett. Ifyou use Spotify, you owe it to yourself to spend the 66 minutes listening to this extraordinary concert. This is pure genius.

So, I now raise my glass and here is to you Elwood.

Cheers, Kent Bitz