Sometimes you find a story—and sometimes it finds you. Hot on the trail of some cemetery pictures for a piece on the Sea Wing Disaster of Lake Pepin in another paper, we turned into a small country cemetery off DD southeast of the village of Ellsworth in Pierce County. The name of the area was Clayfield, and what drew our attention was the less common “resurrexifix” showing a risen Christ with arms extending from the Cross—like one that you might see in a hospital exam room at Our Lady of Victory Hospital just down the road. Pulling off for a picture or two, there was another surprise waiting: the headstone of a priest who had died “at Stanley, Wisconsin” in February 1919 was buried at Clayfield. According to the polished red granite gravestone, Father Quinn was born at Clayfield (Ellsworth township) on August 15, 1884, was later ordained at St. Louis, Missouri in June 1911, and had died at Stanley on February 11, 1919. What else might we learn from looking up nearby dates in the local Stanley paper on BadgerLink?
“The Reverend John Thomas Quinn, pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church, passed away at his home, Tuesday morning, Feb. 10,” the front page notice in the Stanley Republican related, “after a brief illness from pneumonia.” Further right on the top front page, is the news from October 27, 1918 that Patrick Frances Stephen Heighton, a soldier serving in France, had died of pneumonia after an outbreak of Spanish Influenza. No such initial diagnosis is listed for Father Quinn, but this is not impossible, as shall be seen. Among the news contemporaneous with Father Quinn’s obituary is listed the fact that power poles and lines would be pulled from Broadway in a local rewire, along with the notice several locally prominent citizens in Madison to advocate for Pershing County— never established—and that the League of Nations would model itself on the U.S. Constitution, clarifying that “Does not say nations shall not fight,” but instead controlled the number of land and sea forces to be used. War would not be totally abolished, but instead tamed— such was the hope of a century previous.
Returning to Father Quinn, we learn from his sparse biography that he attended the grade and high schools at Ellsworth before attending St. Frances Seminary in Milwaukee, transferring to Marquette University, “where he took the academic course and was granted the B. A. and M. A. degrees.” From there it was on to Kenric Seminary in St. Louis and ordination to the priesthood at Kenric on June 12, 1911, his first Mass being at Ellsworth, Wisconsin. Stanley was his third and final pastorate, and he arrived in May 1914. At the time of Father Quinn’s arrival Stanley had two Catholic parishes—a turn of the century scandal arising from a schism—but these two later reunited as Holy Family parish, decades after Father Quinn had passed.
“These bare details of his life can give no indication of the warmth and vibrance of his personality,” the obituary stated. “They are merely milestones in a life journey, all too brief, but filled to the utmost with service, both material and spiritual for all those with whom he came in contact. Not only to the members of his parish does his going from this life come as a great and enduring sorrow, but to the people of Stanley as a whole, the sense of loss will not be obliterated.” A molder of fraternal spirit, Father Quinn was said to have “a quiet gift of harmonizing peoples regardless of their nationality or creed,” bringing back wandering souls and uniting them in the work of God.
“His death is a sacrifice to his people,” the paper related of Father Quinn. “During the past winter he served untiringly at the homes where sickness and death had come.” A man of physical weakness, funeral services for Father Quinn were held from “St. Mary’s at 9 o’clock on Thursday morning,” with the service preached by Father Redding of Grand Rapids and the casket then escorted by many local citizens, Catholic and otherwise to a train that would take it to Clayfield, whereat was to be Father Quinn’s resting place, located next to the site of a parish church named St. Mary’s, closed in September 1986 and merged to St. Francis of Assisi parish in the Village of Ellsworth. The Bishop and two Monsignors (a title of honor) would conduct the Clayfield services.
“Father to his parishioners, and brother to all mankind— here was a man which his little world had great need of,” the notice continued. “Although he passes in the heyday of his youth, still his life cannot be called incomplete, for each day was lived to its capacity.” That’s a lot to fit on a tombstone.
For those with piqued interest, the grave of Father John Thomas Quinn together with the site of the old parish church at Clayfield can be reached by turning south off of I-94 at Baldwin and on to Highway 63, then heading southeast on Highway 10 from the Village of Ellsworth. A right turn on Highway DD will put one on the right track to the cemetery, which will be on the left-hand side of the road. A granite monument to Our Lady of Perpetual Help commemorates the former site of the parish church, together with a short history.
Photo by Joseph Back.
