Morinville residents reflected this week on the life of one of the town’s longest-serving mayors.
Former Morinville mayor Ross Gerald Quinn died Feb. 24 in the Sturgeon Community Hospital from kidney failure. He was 85.
Morinville Mayor Barry Turner noted Quinn’s passing during the March 9 town council meeting. Quinn’s obituary was published that same day.
Quinn served as a Morinville councillor from 1974 to 1979 and as mayor from 1979 to 1992. He was Morinville's second-longest serving mayor in Morinville, the longest being Arthur Soetaert (who served from 1950 to 1966).
Turner said Quinn oversaw important decisions regarding Morinville’s water and sewer systems while in office that set the town up for the success it was today.
“It is a big loss for our community.”
Shorts-wearing sun worshipper
In a 2019 interview for the Morinville Historical & Cultural Society, Quinn said he was born in Lampman, Sask., and spent his early years working on a farm and in the Saskatchewan oilpatch. He met a plumber through the latter job, took up the trade, and settled in Morinville in 1969. In 1972, he started Quinn’s Plumbing and Heating, which is still in operation.
Quinn’s son, Tim, recalled his father as someone who kept an even keel at all times. While Quinn’s wife, Eva Mac LaValley, would be in front seats cheering Tim on at hockey games, Quinn himself preferred to stand at the back – but would still be there for almost every game.
“He wanted people to be their best,” Tim said, and would push you to do your best.
Quinn was a sun-worshipper who would often take his lunch on the back porch while dressed in shorts, Tim said. He could, and often did, fit a whole round of early-morning golf in before heading to work at Quinn’s Plumbing, and loved to fly his Cessna 172 to get away from it all.
Quinn was extremely busy, and would typically come home from work for dinner only to rush off to a meeting with some town or regional organization, Tim said. The man actually kept four briefcases in the kitchen – one each for town council, the Edmonton Metropolitan Regional Planning Commission, Sturgeon General Hospital, and the Edmonton Flying Club – and would grab the appropriate case on his way out.
In addition to serving as Morinville's representative on various regional boards, Quinn was active with the town’s agricultural society, chamber of commerce, Royal Canadian Legion, and Knights of Colombus. He was declared Citizen of the Year in 1975 and Volunteer of the Year in 1983.
Visionary planner
Quinn said he ran for town council in 1974 at the encouragement of several area residents and won by acclamation.
Former Morinville fire chief Ron Cust knew Quinn through town council and their work on the Frontier Daze festival. He recalled him as someone who was firm, but fair, and who had a huge, infectious grin.
“His vision was one of making sure Morinville wasn’t just being bypassed,” he said, and of looking ahead to the city-sized community Morinville is today.
Quinn greatly reduced traffic deaths on Hwy. 2 by lobbying the province to twin it, for example, Cust said. He also helped bring artificial ice to the Ray McDonald Arena, and led the effort to put in a new sewer and water system – one that could support some 30,000 people at a time when the town had maybe a tenth that population.
Quinn told the Historical Society that council put in that oversized system after talks with infrastructure experts from Winnipeg and Washington, D.C.
“They all emphasized, ‘Whatever you do, make sure it’s going to last a long time.’”
Cust said those water and sewer lines were Quinn’s greatest legacy.
“Every time I turn the water on, I remember he made the right move.”
In his later years, Quinn could often be seen at Quinn’s Plumbing driving trucks, doing estimates, or sharing wisdom, or enjoying sunny times at his winter home in Yuma, Arizona, with his wife.
Tim said he would always picture his father wearing shorts on the back porch, sitting in a lawn-chair reading the news or doing paperwork in the sun.
“He was always there (for you). If I needed help with anything, or advice, or a job to get done, he was always there.”
Quinn is survived by his siblings Doug and Elaine; his children Sandra, Wendy and Tim; and four grandchildren.
Tim said Quinn’s ashes will be interred in the town cemetery next to his wife. The family hoped to hold a celebration of Quinn’s life this summer.
Donations in Quinn’s name can be made to the Kidney Foundation of Canada or the Canadian Cancer Society.
