lit a candle 3d agojust read this at my desk and had to stop. 96 years old, a nurse for 32 years at the same hospital. that kind of steady devotion is rare now.
Their story
Leona "Christy" Quinn was a nurse, Air Force veteran, and longtime pillar of the Plattsburgh, New York community who died on October 17, 2026, at the age of 96. She was not a celebrity in the conventional sense, but a woman whose decades of service, faith, and devotion to her…
Leona "Christy" Quinn was a nurse, Air Force veteran, and longtime pillar of the Plattsburgh, New York community who died on October 17, 2026, at the age of 96. She was not a celebrity in the conventional sense, but a woman whose decades of service, faith, and devotion to her family and neighbors made her a well known and much loved figure in her corner of upstate New York.
Born on May 14, 1930, in Brentwood, Pennsylvania, she was the eldest child and only daughter of Lawson and Harriet (Triebsch) Christy. She trained as a nurse at Mercy College of Nursing and began her career as a United States Air Force officer. It was while stationed in Tachikawa, Japan, that she met John S. Quinn Sr., a U.S. Air Force navigator who became her husband. They married on September 14, 1957, and settled in Plattsburgh, where they raised their family.
After her military service, Quinn built a 32 year career as a nurse manager at Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital, a role that defined much of her working life and brought her into contact with generations of patients and colleagues in the North Country. Beyond her professional work, she was a fixture of civic and religious life in Plattsburgh for more than six decades. She belonged to St. John's Parish for 67 years, served through the Catholic Daughters and the Altar Rosary Society, and volunteered with the Interfaith Food Shelf, the Mothers' Club, the Junior League, and the Knights of Columbus.
Quinn was also known locally as an avid and skilled card player, taking part in nearly every bridge club Plattsburgh had to offer, including the Monday Club, the Wednesday Club, and duplicate bridge circles, and she later took up Mahjong with enthusiasm. Friends and family remembered her most, however, as a devoted mother who threw herself into her children's lives, serving as one of the original hockey mothers for the Roadrunners youth hockey program in the 1970s and as a longtime scorekeeper for the Plattsburgh and St. John's Academy swim teams.
Quinn died on October 17, 2026, in Plattsburgh at the age of 96. No cause of death has been made public. Her passing was announced through an obituary released by R.W. Walker Funeral Home in Plattsburgh and published in the Press Republican on October 20, 2026. She is remembered by her family as someone who left behind, in the words of her obituary, a lasting legacy of faith, family, friendship, and service, and tributes from friends and former colleagues in the Plattsburgh area have continued to be posted in her online guest book.
Biography adapted from News reports and the sources cited on this page; death reported by Sun Community News.
She sounds like she never stopped giving, honestly.