Gift shop owner learned her lessons well
She’s just been through her first Valentine’s Day and Christmas holiday season as a gift shop owner, and Jessica Flynn, founder of Mary’s Grace Gift Boutique in Marshfield, is pleased.
“It’s going very well,” Flynn said, citing several days over the holidays with more than $2,000 in sales, a huge milestone for her fledgling business.
Maybe owning her own gift store was always in the cards. But looking back at her career trajectory, it was not always apparent.
An indifferent high school student – “I was not happy and not at the top of my class” – Flynn recalled that “education was huge in our family. All three of us went to Catholic schools for 12 years,” she said, referring to her older brother and younger sister.
When she was 16, Flynn landed a job working for Roman’s Hallmark, a gift shop in Dedham. Like many a part-time high school worker, she punched the clock and took home some pocket money.
After she graduated from Ursuline Academy in Dedham, Flynn dutifully followed her older brother’s path to college. But her academic career was spotty, at best. She was in and out of four different schools.
