The Life and Times of Robert J

The Life and Times of Robert J. Quinn

The Story of a Man after Whom I Hope to

Model my Future Husband

“I’m a straight arrow, nothing off-shaded…”

Biography by Sarah Shea

Mr. Averill

April 4, 2005

Shea 23

Robert “Bob” J. Quinn, now eighty-two years old, is still as curious, respectable, and interesting as ever. Always enjoying a good game of chess, a few competitive holes of golf, or a simple walk in the woods, Robert is a unique man whose family and peers show nothing but respect and love for him. As his daughter Anne Heffernan stated of him, “He is such a wonderfully simple man, but in a good way. He is not materialistic, extremely resourceful, and shows fortitude in every sense of the word” (3). Anne went on to joke, “He was a fabulous father, as is shown by his fabulous offspring” (3). While Anne may have meant this comment facetiously, what she says is absolutely true. Robert has raised 5 successful, happy, and very well-loved children. None of his children have ventured to live farther than Stoneham, MA, definitely a testament to the close-knit and loving family that Bob has done so much to create.

As Tom Brokaw writes in his book The Greatest Generation, “A sense of personal responsibility and a commitment to honesty is characteristic of this generation. Those were values bred into the young men and women coming of age at the time [World War II] broke out. It’s how they were raised” (1, pg 36). Bob truly embodies this generation, with a sense of responsibility, a moral compass, and a sense of duty greater than anyone I have ever encountered. When questioned what he is most proud of in his life, Robert answered, “My wife, my family, my lifestyle, and my service to my country” (10). His lifestyle is truly something that he should be proud of, for he is regarded by many as “very moral, honest, and hard-working. He never tires of learning things, even at his age” (3).

As his daughter Jane Wierbicky states, “[My father was] always interested in learning about new things, even today. He loves stone walls, cellar holes, and going on walks in Dogtown Common because he knows so much about nature” (16). His grandson Cornelius Shea agrees, referring to Robert as “very natural” (11). This love for nature, curiosity, and love for learning has persisted since Robert Quinn was a young and adventurous whipper-snapper growing up in Rockport, Massachusetts in the 1920s and 1930s (9).

Growing up During The Great Depression

Robert was the fifth of seven children in his family, the son of an avid bread-baker named Catherine Olive White and a steam engineer named Dennis Quinn. He was born on August 22nd, 1923 in Addison Gilbert Hospital in Gloucester, MA and lived in a house near the center of Rockport. He had six siblings, four of whom were much older than he and had little influence on what he did while he was growing up (9). Donna Favazza, Robert’s niece, recalls that her mother, Margaret Quinn, and Robert were always very playful and friendly siblings growing up. Donna states, “My mother used to claim that Bob broke Margaret’s collarbone 7 times. They used to play around and he used to toss her around on his feet and shoved her off the bed and broke her collar bone, broke it 7 times” (2).

Bob seemed to hold a deep respect for his family and especially his father, claiming that he never got in trouble with his family because of this respect. When asked about his relationship with his family, he says, “Never had any difficulties with the authorities anyplace. Great relationship with my parents, absolutely!” (9). Robert describes his father’s profession when he states, “[My father] worked at Parkhurst Marine Railroad in Gloucester, MA and his job was as a Steam Engineer. He hauled fishing boats back and forth, had to use steam machinery to pull boats out of the water, and worked a mill for the construction and repair of all fishing boats” (9). According to Donna, Bob’s father was rather stern. “I get the impression that Grampy Quinn was a very, very stern character. I don’t really remember much about his personality. I don’t really remember much about him except going in to their house and seeing him dying on a bed in the dining room. Extremely stern” (2).

Robert’s mother was an equally interesting character. Catherine Olive seemed to be quite eccentric, Robert immediately recalling that she “made bread for the family every day… 21 loaves of bread per week” (9). She was remembered to be “kind of a character, loved to go downtown shopping and almost always came home with a hat. We would always say ‘not another hat Ma!’ And she loved watching baseball and loved watching soap operas” (2). The household was always extremely busy, with seven siblings and plenty of extended family coming and going, and plenty of work to be done.

Growing up during the Great Depression, Bob does not recall his family having been affected too greatly by the economy. He recalls that “[The Great Depression] probably did [have a large impact] with the older members of the family, but my father was fortunate that he had a job on the waterfront so we were able to eat a lot of fish and we plowed the back yard to plant potatoes and vegetables that we needed at that time” (9). However, others imply that his childhood may not have been as easy as he makes it sound. Many pictures depict Bob adorned in pants made out of potato sacks, his family not having enough money to buy proper clothing. His granddaughter, Elle Wierbicky, recalls a story often told by Bob. “I remember him telling me that when he was little he would only get long underwear and oranges for Christmas” (15).

While Robert claims not to have been a stellar student, he had many other activities to keep him busy. Always with a sense of responsibility for himself and for his family, Robert held a job throughout high school. During the summers he would work for a small farm, “milking cows, cutting hay, storing hay in barns” (9). He also worked as a caddy on the local golf course and worked for four years at the First National Grocery Store, and he will never forget receiving his Social Security number while working at that store (9).

While he carried a lot of responsibility throughout his childhood, Bob also took out some time to enjoy the joys of youth. Constantly amazed by nature, he spent much of his childhood wandering the woods of Rockport with his buddies, “hunting in the woods with guns for rabbits or ducks on the seacoast” (9). He certainly had an affinity for “the natural,” and learned as a young child to be extremely talented at swan diving. The town of Rockport has many quarries due to the business of granite mining, and “turns out there were many swimming holes and I enjoyed diving off the high cliffs of the quarries and enjoying the pleasures of youth!” (9). Legend has it that Robert’s swan-dives still draw “oohs and ahs.” However, Bob seemed to be too busy during his teenage years, working and enjoying the wonders of nature, to be interested in the ladies. As he puts it himself, “I didn’t have time for young ladies in high school, I was too busy working. I didn’t have time for that foolishness” (9).

However, Bob’s friend Ernest “Ernie” Parson recalls the teenage years and spending time at the quarries a bit differently. Bob was not just swan diving at the quarries but in fact, Ernie recalls that Bob “went with different girls and they weren’t always your grandmother” (5) before Bob had met his future wife. Ernie also remembers going to the pits to “go partying over there, and we’d have our girls with us and we’d have a few beers and then one of the fellows, Bill Wood, had a motorcycle and he transported us all back to Rockport on it until the police caught up with us” (5).

A large part of Robert’s young life was being part of the Boy Scouts of Rockport, making a lot of friends in Rockport that he is still best friends with today. He made friends like William Wood, Ernest Parsons, Thor Olson, and Charles Sears, during his early childhood. William and Ernest remain his best friends today, whereas Thor and Charles have sadly passed away (8). A project that took up much of his teenage years was the creation of a log cabin in the woods of Rockport. He describes the experience of creating the log cabin when he says,

“The land belonged to the Boyscouts of Rockport and each troop 2 cabins were built between ages of 12-16 which we used to sometimes bring our classmates down for spaghetti dinners. I was a Panther, and we built one of the cabins. Construction started as a lean-to. After a year or two we decided we needed a larger one, enclosed the open end, making it into a log cabin. As we aged, we put an addition on the cabin, it was a story and a half and you could sleep in the upper loft. Then it seemed too big so we ripped off part of it. Plenty to do as a child, stayed out of trouble. But the farmers didn’t think so” (9).

However, along with the creation of the log cabin comes a famous story of Bob that anyone close to him can recount with precision. Once as he was up in a tree, cutting down a limb for the cabin, he realized that it would be impossible to cut off the branch without sitting on it. The saw slipped, and the branch, and Bob, came tumbling to the ground. Still embarrassed about this incident, he notes, “I sprained my ankle for a few weeks, but the memory has lasted with my family for over 60 years” (9).

Additionally, Bob has always been a very talented athlete, excelling in all things from baseball to six-man football to swan-diving. Extremely active, he has always enjoyed a good bike-ride, a hike in the woods, and taking in the scenery and the history of every inch of nature he sees. He also has a competitive side; he is a great golfer and a competitive crazy eights player, but always maintains his composure and has never been the kind of person to be overly competitive or aggressive about what he is doing. As his daughter Anne Heffernan recalls, “The boys weren’t all that athletic, but he never shoved that stuff down their throats. That wasn’t really his gig. It wasn’t like he was uninvolved, it’s just that he wasn’t one of those push it down your throat kind of guys” (3). In fact, his son Robert, Jr. recalls, “Papa was a baseball star, go back into the record book, he was a fantastic left-handed pitcher” (8). However, Bob is much too humble to recognize this and simply calling himself a “passing student who played sports” (9).

As a whole, Bob’s childhood played a large part in shaping the man that he would become. Learning a lot about responsibility from the era in which he lived, Robert learned what it meant to have to make a living for his family and has always understood the meaning of working hard for the sake of love. His family has always come first; Bob has always worked hard to provide for everyone that he loves and cares for, and absolutely never thinks about something that he desires before the needs of others. As Bob progressed through his education and his career, he showed the fortitude necessary to be an exemplary pilot as well as an amazing father and husband.

Education and Entering the War

After attending Rockport High School for four years of high school, Robert attended New England Aircraft School in 1941, at the outbreak of World War II. Robert learned there the basic skills needed to become an airplane mechanic, and “upon the completion of that course I became a licensed airplane mechanic” (10). He then moved on to become an inspector of the building process of military aircraft in Baltimore, Maryland (10). He then became an instructor for young women in Quoddy Village, ME, where he would teach them at a trade school the basic theories of flight, the mechanics of an airplane, etc. One can see that Robert was extremely knowledgeable about planes, how they worked, and how to fix them. As his niece Donna, who was a flight attendant on many of his flights when he later became a pilot, states, “He was known as the king of the DC6 – not only was he a great captain of the DC6, but he knew the airplane inside and out because he was a mechanic” (2).

After his experience at Quoddy Village, teaching young ladies the theory of flight, Bob was drafted into the military. As he puts it, “Uncle Sam wanted me to come and work for him, and I was drafted into the air force. I was inducted at Fort Devons, MA with my basic training in Atlantic City on the boardwalk” (10). He went to aircraft school in Gulfport, Mississippi to learn even more about planes and their functioning, and upon graduation from school in Mississippi he was “shipped to Palm Springs” (10) at the Palm Springs Airport to work on military aircraft. Robert proudly recollects that he “had the privilege of working on Jimmy Stuart’s airplanes there at that time” (10). After a few weeks in Palm Springs in 1942, he was then shipped back across the country to Greensboro, NC, where he and his comrades began to receive their military transports. Bob ended up in Oran, North Africa, where he had “the pleasure of riding across to the city of Casablanca in a box car/freight train” (10). After about a year and a half of working in Casablanca on the maintenance line, fixing airplanes, Bob was then assigned to become a flight engineer on flights between Casablanca and Natal, Brazil.