BY JANE BLOODWORTH ROWE
PUNGO — A Pungo tradition ended this year when farmer Roy Flanagan decided against raising the holiday turkeys that for decades were a Thanksgiving and Christmas staple for many locals.
Flanagan, who also serves as an agricultural extension service agent in Virginia Beach, said that time pressures were the primary reason he decided to stop raising turkeys this year.
“It ties you down, having livestock,” he said this past week.
Raising and selling turkeys dates at least to Flanagan’s grandfather, also named Roy David Flanagan. [Ed. — Independent News editor John Doucette is kin to the family.]
“I know that my grandfather liked the white turkeys, and his brother, Cecil, who lived on the east side of the ridge, liked black turkeys,” Roy Flanagan III said.
Both brothers raised turkeys, but each raised the ones he preferred.
The family raised the turkeys throughout the summer and sold them to local consumers or to businesses that gave their employees a holiday turkey as a bonus. At one point, they raised about 450 each year, some of which were slaughtered at Thanksgiving and some at Christmas.
In recent years, the family scaled back to about 250, mostly harvested at Thanksgiving. “There was a change in consumer demand, Flanagan said, “and not as many people want turkeys at Christmas now.”
Flanagan’s grandmother, Alice Flanagan, always prepared a large meal for volunteers who helped harvest and clean the birds. As she and Roy David Flanagan Sr. aged, the torch passed to Flanagan’s father, Roy David Jr. and his wife, Susan Flanagan.
“I started by helping my mother-in-law, and I really didn’t take over until she died in 1998,” Susan Flanagan said.
Turkey, ham, homemade yeast rolls and a variety of vegetables were always on the menu because the ladies were cooking for about 50 people, she said.
Roy David Flanagan Jr. died in 2020, but the younger family members carried on the turkey business. Roy Flanagan III’s wife, Jeannie Flanagan, and sister, Amy Irving, helped Susan Flanagan prepare the traditional meal for the volunteers.
Last year, a disease attacked and killed many turkeys, and Flanagan said some loyal customers told him it was the first year in memory they wouldn’t have a Flanagan turkey for Thanksgiving. That wasn’t a factor in his decision to stop raising turkeys as much as time concerns on a busy farm.
“It wasn’t a tradition that I wanted to see die on my watch,” he said, “but it just wasn’t sustainable.”
Still, Flanagan said that he had a lot of good memories of the community coming together to help harvest fresh turkeys.
“My best memories are of my grandmother in the kitchen and all of the ladies helping her,” Flanagan said. “It was a community event then, and it continued to be.”
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