Eucharistic minister Lynn Quinn dies at 62

Lynn Quinn of Brightwaters, a religious-book editor, eucharistic minister at St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Bay Shore and member of the Hibernian Festival Singers, died of complications from cancer on Easter Sunday. She was 62.

Quinn was among the first lay people to earn a master's degree in theology from the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Lloyd Harbor.

She served Holy Communion to sick people in the hospital, volunteered at soup kitchens and always helped neighbors in need, friends and family said.

"She truly loved God and the people with whom she came in contact," said Bill Quinn, 79, her husband of 16 years. "She did it all with grace and dignity."

Even when she was in hospice care, Bill Quinn said, she was selfless, trying to accommodate visitors by offering them her blanket or food from her plate.

As a soprano in the Hibernian Festival Singers, a Long Island choral group, Quinn performed in Carnegie Hall and in overseas venues such as Paris, Lourdes and Normandy.

She was managing editor at The Crossroad Publishing Co. in Manhattan, where she worked with authors on books about spirituality, including "Parish!" by Newsday's Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Bob Keeler.

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Quinn retired from publishing in 1999.

"She was so bright and very talented," said Mary Ellen Walsh of Levittown, who became good friends with Quinn through the choral group more than a decade ago.

Quinn had a way of comforting people with her words, Walsh said, recalling a series of voice-mail messages Quinn left when Walsh's parents were ill.

"I've saved those messages to this day; that's how much they meant to me," Walsh said.

Lynn Quinn was born in Brooklyn to Calvin and Kathryn Overholt, the oldest of five children. Her family moved to Long Island as a child and she was raised in Great River.

She attended St. Mary's School in East Islip and East Islip High School. Quinn graduated from SUNY Cortland with a degree in English and landed a job at the Simon & Schuster publishing house in Manhattan.

She also is survived by her son, Christopher Schmitt of Bayside, Queens; daughter Erica Hochberg and son-in-law Sam Hochberg of Peabody, Mass.; sisters Diane Danbury of Tarpon Springs, Fla., and Patricia Sciordiano of Melbourne, Fla.; brothers James Overholt of Plymouth, Ind., and Steven Overholt of Chargrin Falls, Ohio; two grandchildren; and four stepchildren and five step-grandchildren.

She is predeceased by her first husband, Edward Schmitt.

Visiting will be Thursday from 2-4:30 p.m. and from 7-9 p.m. at Overton Funeral Home, 172 Main St., Islip.

A funeral Mass will be held 11 a.m. Friday at St. Patrick's Church in Bay Shore. Burial will follow at St. Charles Cemetery in East Farmingdale.