Peter Charles Quinn Jr.

Peter Charles Quinn, of Harvard, Massachusetts, passed away peacefully on November 1, 2025, following complications related to chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Born on November 14, 1939, to Dolores and Peter Quinn in Putnam, Connecticut, Peter was raised in Westwood, Massachusetts. He graduated from Stonehill College in 1961. His early vocation as an English literature teacher in Jamaica and his service as a member of St. Joseph’s Abbey preceded a successful entrepreneurial career as the founder of the Peter C. Quinn Insurance Agency.

Peter once wrote that his true “life-work” began in 1971, when he married his beloved wife, Patricia. Together they raised three children—Jonathan, Matthew, and Erin—building a home filled with humor, creativity, curiosity, and love.

Peter was an artist in the truest sense. Through his “life-work,” he embodied the Latin traditio—the art of passing down hard-won understanding: that to live well is to balance purpose with joy, motion with stillness, thought with creation.

Even as a licensed amateur radio operator, known by his call sign N1-PQ, he found beauty in the unseen: invisible signals, distant voices, and the quiet proof that connection can travel farther than sight.

Whether he was writing, cycling, sailing, building, teaching, playing music, tending to his fish, crafting something by hand, or communicating across the globe, Peter’s life was a study in harmony—each act deliberate, yet free.

In later years, his joy deepened through his grandchildren—Brendan, Emily, Liam, Sarah, and Grace—each one offering new reason to laugh, teach, and marvel.

A life as full as Peter’s cannot be contained in words, but his own words come close:

"A poem is an embodied spirit contained within a paper cage."

Simple, precise, and alive—those words hold the essence of how he lived. His spirit endures in every word, every work, and every quiet moment he shaped with care.

Peter is survived by his wife, Patricia; his children Erin, Matthew (and his wife Nicole), and Jonathan (and his partner Maria); his grandchildren Grace, Sarah, Liam, Emily, and Brendan; his sister, Paula Quinn; his sister-in-law Mary Jane Hurley; and fourteen nieces and nephews, of whom he was so very fond. He was preceded in death by his parents, Peter Sr. and Dolores Quinn, and his brother, James.

In lieu of flowers please consider making a donation in honor of Peter C. Quinn Jr to Blood Cancer United (formerly the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society) at https://bloodcancerunited.org

Family and friends will gather to honor and remember Peter for visiting hours on Friday, November 21, 2025, from 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm at Badger Funeral Home, 347 King Street, Littleton, MA. His funeral mass will be celebrated on Saturday, November 22, 2025, at 9:00 am at Blessed Trinity Parish - St Anne Church, 75 King Street, Littleton, MA.

Arrangements are under the care of Badger Funeral Home, A Life Celebration Home, 347 King St., Littleton, MA 01460. 978-486-3709