From "Descendants of John and Mary (Miller) Cullers of Shenandoah County, Virginia" by Patricia A. (Martin) Fogle. Click on "View original" at lower-right for larger look.

Harold O'Flaherty and Son. William Cullers O'Flaherty and William "Bill O'Flaherty Jr.

From his brother, Lester, in his “Daniel O’Flaherty Family History – 1971” we find an autobiography of Otis.
“I was born at Carmel, Virginia on October 23, 1906. I do not remember anything about Carmel, Virginia. We moved from Carmel to Detrick, (Seven Fountains) Virginia when I was very young and then to the Kneisley—Rinker farm on Passage Creek. All I remember about Seven Fountains farm is my chasing my sisters, Mapha and Maude, with a switch and nearly being trampled by a horse named Dan (a family pet) when I walked up to him calling his name while he was grazing in the Spring Lot. My first memories of the Rinker—Kneisley farm was my shooting one of the carpenters in his buttock with an air gun loaded with a nail. Mother and father had a house built there and I lived there until I left home.

I went to high school two years at Fort Valley High School and boarded with a cousin at Woodstock, Virginia two years while finishing high school there. (Wilmer, brother, loaned me the money which I paid back.) Of course, others in the family gave me spending money when possible. I played both baseball and basketball on the high school teams. I was catcher on the baseball team and guard on the basketball team. We had a football team one year and I can remember playing but one game, and that was with Handley High School at Winchester, Virginia. I played the lead role the year I graduated in, in the play “My Wild Irish Rose”. We gave the play at three other towns in the Shenandoah Valley (it was supposed to be that good). The event which made me remember my father so vividly was the fact that we had to ford the South Branch of the Shenandoah River which was so deep the horses had to practically swim at places. I was very scared, but my father never batted an eye. Our father was small compared to his sons, but he had the grit of a grizzly bear.

Continued in caption of his elder photo.

98 year-old Otis' Autobiography continued.

I went to work selling life insurance with Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company on the advice of my brother Lester. This was the year of the stock market crash. I was a dismal failure selling life insurance and then began to work as a cab driver making as little as 25 cents a day. I lived with Uncle John’s wife and two sons, Aunt Mollie and Dave and John. It was Dave and my jobs which earned enough to pay for the food. In 1927 I met Meta Lee Fleming of Upperville, Virginia who was living at my brother Lester’s home. Lester insisted I visit him to meet her which sealed my fate. We married on October 2, 1934.

I was promoted to Night Agent on January 1, 1935 and while working at night I enrolled in Southeastern Law School in September 1934 and graduated and received my LLB degree in June 1937. I worked as Night Agent until 1944 when I was made an inspector and traveled all over the United States until 1948 at which time I returned to my Night Agent’s position. My sister Maude’s husband Ray Palmer formed Palmer & Phelps, Inc., an insurance agency, and I began working part time as a clerk and seeing the possibilities in insurance. I secured my license and began to work as an Agent which connection was not severed until August 1969, all the time working for the Pullman Company.

Our son, Harold, was born on January 7, 1941 and despite his handicap has been a joy to our lives. We are very proud of his accomplishments and love his wife Annette and their daughters Patricia and Jane, our grandchildren. “

Otis contributed most for the perpetual upkeep of the O’Flaherty Cemetery at Carmel in Fort Valley taken at many family reunions, by far.