Joyce (Van Sloun) Quinn

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Biography

Joyce was born in Chaska, MN in 1926. She was the 4th of 13 children born to Florian Van Sloun and Esther Diethelm. She grew up on their family farm in Chaska and worked right alongside her Pa and brothers in the fields, as well as helping her Ma and sisters in the house.

Joyce had dark brown hair and brown eyes and was tall, at 5'10". She was strong enough to sling 80 pound hay bales, but still slender and pretty enough to be offered modeling jobs. Working outside as she did, in the summer she became so deeply tanned that her friends jokingly nicknamed her "Blacky".

After graduating from Guardian Angels High School in 1944, Joyce moved to Minneapolis. The day she left home, her Pa took her to the train, handed her $5 and wished her well. As a single woman, Joyce worked a variety of jobs. As a waitress, she told of serving mobsters who dined with local politicians. She also worked at a glider airplane plant, gluing the canvas skin onto the planes' wooden frames. We used those gliders in the run up to D-Day to drop our forces behind enemy lines. She also had a good time going to dances where the Big Bands played. She saw the Dorsey brothers, Glen Miller, and the others.

Joyce married Bob Quinn, son of Leo Quinn and Sarah Gaynor, in the middle of a blizzard on 1/30/1947 at Guardian Angels Catholic Church in Chaska. Snow filled roads and bald tires made Bob so late for his wedding that when he finally arrived at the church, he was met by an unsmiling Franciscan priest who'd been pacing outside in the snow in his sandaled feet. Perhaps the priest was worried because Joyce was 5 months pregnant with Bob's second child and was anxious that Bob go through with the wedding. Maton of honor was Joyce's sister, Grace, and best man was Bob's friend, Bob Deese. (For the rest of her life, she and her family lied about Joyce's wedding date to keep her son's illegitimacy secret from her children.)

Because of the post-war housing shortage, their first home was in a rooming house at 1207 E 21st St, Minneapolis, then a rented house at 4407 Grimes, Morningside, MN (now part of Edina), then a converted garage at 4209 39th Ave S, Minneapolis. In 1951 Bob bought them a one bedroom summer cottage in Greenwood Village, outside of Excelsior, Hennepin, MN. The original address was Rt. 3, Box 236, Excelsior, on County Road 82 (now 21200 Minnetonka Blvd). It only had a hand pump for water, and the cottage wasn't insulated, but it was set in 5 heavily wooded acres, next door to a YWCA summer camp, and very near Lake Minnetonka. With the help of Joyce's dad and brothers, they cleared the trees near the house and made improvements to the house. Joyce's upbringing had taught her about hard work and she made many of the improvements herself. She energetically swung a hammer and poured cement, but plumbing and wiring she left to her husband. The summer cottage gradually became a 3 bedroom year round home with a huge yard. Later, they sold 4 acres of their woods to the YWCA, who used them to expand the girl's camp and left them untouched. They lived in this home for the rest of their lives.

Bob and Joyce had 9 children together, 6 boys and 3 girls.

Joyce was a talented homemaker. For many years she kept a large vegetable garden. The vegetables, along with the various fruits from the trees she'd planted, were canned and preserved, and used to feed her large family. She sewed, knitted or crocheted much of her children's clothing. She also made quilts by hand, which she gave away. She loved fishing and she Bob often went on fishing trips with her sister and brother-in-law, Grace and Jack Heideman.

Joyce was an intelligent woman who always interested in learning new things. Their home was well supplied with reference books, biographies and novels, which she read often. She taught herself to paint, read music, and play the organ.

She was a member of the Excelsior, Lake Minnetonka Historical Society for many years and served one year as its president. When the Society had a project that required a photographer, she spent months choosing just the right 35mm camera to buy and enrolled in photography classes to learn how to use it. She was the creator of two books the historical society published. One was a photographic index of every building in Excelsior. She took and developed all the photos and recorded each building's location. The second book was her transcription of the Lydia Ferguson Diaries, a local pioneer woman. She spent innumerable hours with a magnifying glass, trying to read the author's faded, cramped handwriting and transcribing them using a manual typewriter. She wrote her biography, titled "Once Upon The Farm", which was a collection of her rememberances of her childhood. Shortly before her death, she gave copies to all of her brothers and sisters, as well as her children.

She passed away in 1986 after her second battle with cancer, and is buried with her husband in Resurrection Cemetery, Shorewood, MN.^[1]

Sources

• First-hand knowledge of Pat Quinn

1. ↑ Photo of headstone at Find A Grafe: [1]

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Pat Quinn for starting this profile.

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