Thomas J. Quinlan, longtime English teacher and poetry scholar, has died at 98

Thomas J. Quinlan, 98, formerly of Levittown, longtime English teacher for the School District of Philadelphia, poetry scholar, guidance counselor, drama club director, and veteran, died Monday, Jan. 15, of age-associated decline at Pine Run Village Health Center in Doylestown.

An inspiring teacher and poetry scholar-in-residence at Abraham Lincoln High School in Northeast Philadelphia for most of his four decades with the school district, Mr. Quinlan took his high school classroom by storm in 1952 and introduced students to Emily Dickinson, W.B. Yeats, William Shakespeare, and other literary masters with what his family called “full-throated gusto and thoughtful perspective.”

He taught English with energy and enthusiasm, read his favorite poems in class every day, counseled countless students about college and curriculum, and oversaw the drama club for 20 years. He retired in 1990 but never stopped affecting people. “He was my favorite teacher, mentor, and advocate,” a former student said in a Facebook tribute. “I think of him every time I read a poem.”

His career was featured in The Inquirer in a 2013 article with the headline “A life in love with verse,” and he said: “The kids I taught probably had more poetry than they should have. Because poetry doesn’t come easily, you have to develop a taste for it. Poetry takes a little bit of energy and time.”

He told his daughter-in-law Mary Lou a few years ago: “I’ve shared my passion for poetry with thousands of students over the years, but who knows if I ever got through?”

He got through, his students said. His Facebook page, Tom Quinlan Poetry, is filled with tributes about the “twinkle in his eye, his marvelous sense of humor … his trademark booming voice.” One former student said: “I always sat in the front of his class so I didn’t miss a thing.”

He also taught adult night classes, summer school for struggling high school students, and later poetry to seniors. He even volunteered for two summers to teach conversational English in China. “He was a teacher’s teacher,” his family said in a tribute.

Mr. Quinlan’s lifelong love for poetry was ignited by a fourth-grade nun, and he carried Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass during World War II, and read Henry David Thoreau’s Walden every summer for decades. He went to countless lectures and readings by poets and editors, and talked poetry at the dinner table for years.

He considered Yeats “a giant” among poets and spent 10 summers at the Yeats International Summer School for poetry in Sligo, Ireland. He posted poetry readings online and published a 100-page collection of his favorite poets and poems, A Crowd of Stars, in 2015 when he was 91.

“His big thing is to read a poem and think about it a little bit,” his son Joe said. “Then think about it a little bit more.”

» READ MORE: Tom Quinlan is not a poet. But poetry is at his heart.

In 2011, his family established the annual Tom Quinlan Lecture in Poetry at the Glucksman Ireland House at New York University. The lecture features the winner of Queen University’s annual Seamus Heaney Prize for poetry, and Heaney said “the affection of this family and their generosity is exemplary” at the inaugural event.

Thomas Joseph Quinlan was born Jan. 28, 1925, in Philadelphia. He grew up in Frankford and graduated from North Catholic High School in 1942.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in English in 1949 at La Salle College, now La Salle University, and a master’s degree in English at Temple University. He enlisted in the Army after high school and was a corporal with the Army Air Corps in the Pacific Theater during World War II.

He met Ginny Clark on a blind date, and they married in 1948, and had sons Tom and Joe, and daughters Maureen and Ginny. They lived in Levittown for 60 years before moving to Newtown and then Doylestown. His wife and infant daughter Maureen died earlier.

Mr. Quinlan worked as a Realtor in Levittown for a decade in the 1950s and was active at St. Michael the Archangel Church, the YMCA of Lower Bucks County, and the Langhorne Players. Actor Sylvester Stallone was one of his students at Lincoln in the 1960s, and Mr. Quinlan was offered a cameo role in Rocky III.

He followed the Phillies closely from the old Baker Bowl to Citizens Bank Park and won the chance to announce the starting lineups on the field before a game in 2013. He became such a good golfer in his 80s that he won a gold medal at the Pennsylvania Senior Games.

He was, his family said, “devoted to his family, his thousands of students, and his love of poetry.” He told The Inquirer in 2013: “You can live a long, happy life without reading a poem or listening to Beethoven. But your life is diminished.”

In addition to his children, Mr. Quinlan is survived by three grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren, and other relatives. Two brothers and two sisters died earlier.

Visitation with the family is to be from 9:30 to 10:15 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 24, at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, 235 E. State St., Doylestown, Pa. 18901. A funeral Mass is to follow.

Donations in his name may be made to the Sisters of St. Joseph Retirement Fund, 9701 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia, Pa. 19118.