Sister Mary Caritas Quinn, RSM, 1928-2020

Sister Mary Caritas Quinn, teacher, administrator and missionary died Friday, Sept. 18, 2020, in the Mercy Center Health Care Unit. She was 92.

 Born Margaret Mary Quinn on March 4, 1928, in South Buffalo, she was the youngest of seven children. Margaret Mary attended St. Agatha and Holy Family Elementary Schools and Mount Mercy Academy. In 1946, she began working in the law office of Peter Crotty.  On Aug. 15,1949, she entered the Sisters of Mercy. As Sister Caritas, she taught and studied, earning a bachelor’s degree in Education from Niagara University, a master’s in Business Administration from Xavier University, and a master’s in Business from Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines.

Teaching at Holy Family School and Mount Mercy Academy prepared her for her new assignment of traveling to the Philippines in 1964 to teach on both an elementary and high school level. Serving as principal and business college directress was an opportunity for building new skills and providing students with a strong educational foundation.

She then was on staff at Mercy Novitiate in Ozamiz City and worked to raise money to open the Mercy Community Clinic for the poor, evolving into what is now Mercy Community Hospital.

Once Sister Caritas returned to Buffalo she continued to promote mission work at Trocaire College, was a staff member at a temporary shelter for teenage girls, a literacy volunteer, Mercy Hospital volunteer, traveled extensively to speak about the needs of the poor in a mission ministry. She promoted care for the earth well into the last decades of her life.

Sister Caritas is survived by many nieces, nephews and great nieces and nephews and devoted friends Anne and Bill Walz.

A funeral Mass will be celebrated Sept. 23, at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Parish, Orchard Park, at 10 a.m., followed by burial at Holy Cross Cemetery.