Dorothea Louise (Stammler) Quinn
Dorothea Quinn Obituary
On April 3, 2022,Dorothea Louise (nee Stammler) Quinn, beloved wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, neighbor and friend left her earthly home to join her Father in Heaven and be reunited with the love of her life, Mack. Dordy, as she preferred to be called, was born in Johnstown, PA on Nov. 4, 1923. She had one older brother, George, and was the daughter of George and Elsa (nee Bojunga) Stammler. Her early life was defined by historical events. She was born in and spent the first few years of her childhood in the house her grandparents had built after their home was washed away in the Great Johnstown Flood of 1889. Her family was living in Summit, NJ in 1936, only a few miles from the Hindenburg disaster, which they viewed the next day. She played with her high school band at the 1939 World’s Fair in nearby Fleshing Meadows, New York. In 1943, she graduated from Marjorie Webster’s Junior College in Washington DC. Before graduation, she was invited to the White House with a few other classmates to have tea with Eleanor Roosevelt. During the summers she worked for Pan Am Airways in New York City.
After graduation, with the Second World War raging, she joined the Navy and was stationed in St. Augustine, Florida and Charleston, SC and became a link trainer teaching pilots to fly on instruments when visibility was poor. While stationed in Charleston, she met and married Mack Quinn who was from Montana and also in the Navy. They spent the first few months of their marriage in one of the carriage houses on Cat Fish Row, made famous in the Porgy and Bess play “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” They then moved to Pittsburg after Mack was hired by Westinghouse. His first job assignment was in Atlanta, GA where they lived for a year and their son Bob was born. Mack brought Dordy and their new born son, Bob, back to his family’s wheat and cattle ranch near Big Sandy, Montana in the summer of 1948. There, this city girl who had never been east of Pennsylvania, learned to cook on a wood stove, iron with a flat iron and deal with batteries and a wind charger that produced “very little electricity.” Mack helped change all that with his work to help bring the REA to their home. By 1950, a daughter, Debby, was born making her family complete. After 12 years Mack was able to keep another promise, a new house. It was built mostly during the winters over a 5 year period with occasional help from neighbor work parties pouring concrete or putting up the rafters. Dordy’s fingerprints were all over every detail in every room as she helped plan and supervise every stage of the constructions.
She adapted well to farm life, learning how to drive trucks, help with the cattle, cook for the hired help, harvest and branding crews, as well as shoot rattle snakes, prairie dogs and skunks. However, on the advice of an elderly neighbor, she never learned to milk the family cow. Even though the relative peace and quiet of the farm was a far cry from the bustle of New York and Washington DC and the country dances at the Lone Tree school house featuring local musicians were a bit different from the ballroom of the Pennsylvania Hotel in NYC where she used to dance to the likes of Glen Miller and Benny Goodman, she loved her new life and the community that came with it. She and Mack were regulars at the community picnics at the White Rocks along the Missouri or at nearby Osterman’s Grove or the Faber’s for the 4th of July. Everyone always looked forward to her big pot Boston baked beans which she brought to many picnics.
Every two years, the house turned into the local Republican headquarters as she and Mack were actively involved in the election campaigns. She loved playing bridge, being a member of the Lone Tree Women’s Club and following her two kids in all their school activities and helping out whenever a need arose. She was a regular chaperon to music and speech meets where she turned into a regular “Speech Mom.” Even students from other schools would ask her for help. She also was very active in Farm Bureau, Eastern Star, Daughters of the Nile, at the local and state level, as well as the American Legion Auxiliary, PTA and local church activities.
Having been raised in an East Coast aristocratic style, she was a stickler for good manners and respect. She also loved to have everything in perfect order and made the best chocolate chip cookies in the neighborhood. After Bob came back to take over the farm in 1978, she and Mack moved into Big Sandy and began a new routine of spending time at a cabin they bought in the Highwood mountains in the summers and heading south for the winters. Most of those winters were spent in Sun City West, AZ were they found a second home and where Dordy entered her “golden years”. Dordy loved playing bridge and bocci, a lawn bowling game. She enjoyed Questers, an organization dedicated to preserving the past for the future. She and Mack also were busy with their neighborhood and church activities. Both she and Mack had joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints later in life and were both active in church as long as their health permitted.
In 2007 they sold their Arizona home and moved back to their 2nd new home on the farm and finally moved to Great Falls in 2012 when Mack’s health began to fail. They moved into Grandview assisted living in 2014 where Mack passed away in 2015 a few weeks before his 94th birthday and a few months before their 70th anniversary.
During the past few years Dordy continued to play bridge up until last fall when she turned 98. She enjoyed the activities at Grandview and visiting with her kids, grandkids and great grandkids as often as possible. This activity was hampered by the shutdown of Grandview to visitors during the recent pandemic. She moved out to her own apartment in the fall of 2020 in protest, but after 3 months returned to Grandview to be with her friends despite the numerous quarantines which ensued.
She had a very long, fulfilling and happy life and loved visiting and socializing with a host of friends who will certainly miss her cheery disposition.
She is survived by her children Bob (Ann) Big Sandy and Debby Blyth (Great Falls); 6 grandchildren, Allison (Jerry) Taylor (Havre), Penny (Brook) Walker (Ferndale, WA), Holly (Sean) Knighton (Afton, WY), Trevor Blyth (Erica) (Missoula), Bridgette (Andrew) Long (Great Falls) and Adam (Kat) Quinn (West Lafayette, IN) and 20 greatgrandchildren. She will be laid to rest in the family plot of the Big Sandy Cemetery next to Mack in Graveside Services which will take place Friday, April 8, 2022 at 2:00 PM with military honors.
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