Fr. Edward Flanagan

The Father of Boys Town

Edward Joseph Flanagan was born on July 13, 1886, in the small townland of Leabeg, near Ballymoe, County Roscommon, Ireland. The eighth of eleven children of John and Nora Flanagan, he grew up in rural Irish poverty but with deep Catholic faith. In 1904, at age 18, he emigrated to the United States following his older brother. After studying at several institutions, he entered Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, and was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Omaha on July 26, 1912.

As a young priest in Omaha, Father Flanagan worked with the homeless and unemployed, and was deeply moved by the number of abandoned, impoverished, and mistreated young people he encountered. Convinced that no child was beyond redemption, he opened a home for boys on December 12, 1917, with just $90 and five boys. His motto became the most famous words of his life: "There are no bad boys." The home grew rapidly, and by 1921 it had moved to Overlook Farm west of Omaha, which became the village of Boys Town.

Father Flanagan was a visionary social reformer who countered the trend of merely punishing antisocial behavior, instead seeking to understand the unmet human needs that triggered it. He welcomed children of every race, religion, and background decades before the civil rights movement. His work was dramatized in the popular 1938 film "Boys Town," starring Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney, which won two Academy Awards and brought his mission to international attention. In 1947, President Harry Truman asked him to advise on the care of war orphans in Asia and Europe. Father Flanagan died on May 15, 1948, in Berlin while carrying out this mission. He was 61 years old. He was buried at Boys Town, the community he had built for thousands of children who had no one else.

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