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Letter to the editor

A life summed up by service

By MARTY CLEAR Times Correspondent
Published September 21, 2007

The first comes from about 40 years ago when Mr. Quann was an Air Force pilot and had just been ordered to go to Vietnam:

"Our son had just been diagnosed with a disease, and so my husband could have stayed home," Patsy Quann said. "I told him, 'John, you know you don't have to go.' But he said, 'Oh, if I don't go, I'll never be able to live with myself.' "

The second sound bite comes from after he retired. He volunteered for the American Red Cross, driving elderly people to the doctor and other necessary appointments.

"That's the best thing I do all week," he told his wife.

"Those two things, they pretty much sum up the man," she said this week. "He was truly a marvelous man."

Mr. Quann's life of service to his country and community ended Sept. 10 when he died of natural causes. He was just a few weeks shy of his 79th birthday, and he had been in declining health for some months.

Locally, he was probably best known for another kind of service. For 16 years, he taught theology at Tampa Catholic High School.

"He was very well thought of," said Tampa Catholic principal Patricia Landry. "He retired in 1991, but he was always a faithful participant in our school events until about a year ago, which I guess is when he started having health problems."

He was also a familiar figure at Christ the King Catholic Church, where he served as lector for many years.

"Everyone at the church loved it when he read," his wife said. "He was so dignified, so sophisticated. Whenever the bishop came to visit, they would always have John do the reading."

Mr. Quann was born in the Bronx and studied political science at St. Louis University. He got his military commission through the ROTC program at the university, and started flight training soon after he graduated.

He was in flight school in Oklahoma when he met his future wife.

"He was dating my roommate," Patsy Quann said. "And she had to go to Dallas, so she said to me, "Why don't you go out with our John?'"

They married, and like many military families, they lived a nomadic lifestyle. They moved so many times they lost count.

"We moved 22 times in 23 years, or 23 times in 22 years, who really cares?" Patsy Quann said.

They spent long periods apart. Mr. Quann was stationed in Iceland for a year, and his wife had to stay home.

"I went up and spent Christmas with him," she said. "That's the craziest thing, to spend Christmas in Iceland, but that's what I did. We had four hours of daylight."

Later came his Vietnam duty. Mr. Quann flew an unarmed plane over North Vietnam that would jam enemy radio frequencies.

"That was pretty brave," Patsy Quann said. "He got a bronze star for that."

Mr. Quann had taught ROTC briefly during his military tenure, but didn't start his teaching career in earnest until after he retired from the Air Force in 1975. His last Air Force assignment had been at MacDill Air Force Base, and afterward he and his wife settled on Davis Islands, where they lived ever since.

He was as passionate about learning as he was about teaching. He was in his 50s when he earned his sociology degree from the University of South Florida, and later taught sociology at the University of Tampa and Hillsborough Community College. He started learning to play piano when he was 55.

Mr. Quann and his wife both taught at Tampa Catholic, but living and working together was never a problem.

"We taught in different buildings, and we had lunch breaks at different times so we really didn't see each other," Patsy Quann said. "A lot of the kids didn't realize we were married, even with that strange last name."

Besides his wife, Mr. Quann is survived by his daughter, Kristin, sons John C. and James A. Quann, three grandchildren and a great-grandson.

[Last modified September 20, 2007, 07:27:01]