Interview 8

Interview with Frank Duff

One day I got one of the old first air mail letters ... aero-grams-they came out in the war for the first time-from her and I opened it and read it. She said in it, 'I am in very poor form at the moment. I have never been able to pull myself together since my trip to Kisumu.' When I read that letter, I said to myself, 'She's telling me that she is dying.' Never before had that note been sounded. As I was looking in consternation at the letter, the doorbell rang. It was the post office messenger with a telegram informing me that Edel Quinn had just died ... it was a great shock coming right with the other."

In this interview Beatrice Flannigan, Vice President of the Hartford Comitium, elicits from Mr. Duff some of his personal remembrances of Edel Quinn. His memories of her are still so vivid that his emotions come to the surface as he describes them so touchingly.

This interview was made on August

28, 1979.

Q. With us in the studio this afternoon is Mr. Frank Duff who knew Edel Quinn personally and, in fact, was largely responsible for her being assigned to East Africa as an Envoy of the Legion of Mary. This past March Mr. Duff and three other officers of the Concilium visited Rome and while there met with Father Cairoli, Postulator of Edel Quinn's cause. Before asking you to tell us some of your personal remembrances of Edel Quinn, Mr. Duff, would you tell us about your meeting with Father Cairoli?

A. Yes. Actually, before we saw the priest whom you referred to, we met Cardinal Bafile, who is the Cardinal in charge of the whole congregation that attends to canonizations. He's a prelate whom we know very well. When he was the personal Chamberlain of Pope John XXIII, he bade us the compliment of inviting us to his ceremony of consecration which was performed by the Pope himself. Then on the day after that we were brought into Pope John himself and had a delightful session with him. After that Bafile became Nuncio to Germany. He's terribly keen about the Legion. He was one of the very first that received us on the last trip and he entertained us to tea and had staged a cake which had been made especially for us. He was awfully pleasant and he's a tremendous believer in Edel Quinn. Of course, he never knew her personally but he is a convinced believer in her. Then we saw Father Cairoli who is the Postulator. He is resident in a Franciscan House out near the Via Aurelia. We went out to him and had a very long session with him. Now from the very first he has protested his entire conviction about her. A little while ago, for instance, he wrote to us saying that by reason of something or other he had been taken away from her cause for a few weeks and he had just gone back to it. And he said, "I always rise up refreshed anew by reading this vivid unbelievable life." The two of them said that she presented a model for every way of life in the world, that she had an irresistible attraction for people and that every type of person seemed to find a lesson in her life. Well, you don't get Rome dancing in that ecstacy of enthusiasm in the ordinary way. Now the problem at the moment is miracles. The position there is peculiar. We have got a tremendous number of cases reported to us. One of Brother Nagle's specialties was to deal with these and he used to send them onto Rome. Now they have a great big load of them in Rome but they have not been in a position to investigate them and this they requested us now to do. They want us to have conversation with the Vice-Postulator of the Cause who is now residing in Dublin. We are to pick out some of the distinctive ones and have them medically investigated.

Q. How many miracles are necessary for her cause?

A. Two technically. I'd imagine myself that in her case that they'd be content with one. But that's only my own surmise.

Q. What did you see in Edel Quinn that prompted you to recommend to the Concilium that she be sent off to Africa as an envoy?

A. Of course, that question didn't arise at all at first. Edel Quinn came into the Legion and we weren't even aware of her entry. 1 think she joined about 1927. She came into the Legion and she joined a Praesidium over on the North side. The fact that she did so would never come to us because of other people coming in simultaneously. She arrived in the crowd. But after a while mention began to come in about her. We'd always be very glad to hear of such and her name began to be mentioned as great quality. Eventually 1 sent for her. She came over and she had tea with me and then we had a chat for a great deal of the evening. That visit made an indelible impression upon me and that impression was altogether favorable. She did not present any appearance of delicacy. She was utterly charming, most charming person, obviously of very good intelligence and, at this particular time, obviously very keen on the Legion. It was a very happy little session with her. Then, as a consequence of that, soon afterwards we got a demand from this Praesidium, Our Lady, Refuge of Sinners, (Number Four in order of coming into life), which used to visit the low-down women's lodging houses, a very difficult work. A girl called Colette Gill, who had been the President and a marvelous one, had to resign. They sent word over to us that they wanted a President who had to be good, had to be. The answer to that was Edel Quinn. Well, when this child turned up, (LAUGHS) at least they were most polite (LAUGHS) and they did not lay their thoughts on the table when she was there. But they held a meeting afterwards and they sent the Spiritual Director over to us to protest vehemently.

Q. How old was Edel Quinn at that time?

A. 1 suppose she was about twenty-two or twenty-three, years of age.

Q. Did they feel she was too young and therefore too inexperienced to be President of a praesidium?

A. Her youth was what counted against her.

Q. I see.

A. She looked very child-like. Dr. Dempsey came along and saw us and delivered this message. We laughed at him and told him that they ought to be down on their knees thanking their lucky stars at getting such a person and that they would find out soon for themselves their luck. So, he went back and told them and reported back, "I cut no ice." (LAUGHS) They did find very quickly that they had a treasure and she stayed on. She was in that work and constantly inside Sancta Maria as well because the two works hinged on each other. She was there until her breakdown. Of course, soon enough we were thinking very big about her. But soon enough we learned that she had ambitions elsewhere. She had actually arranged to enter the Poor Clare Convent over in Donnybrook. When it got closer to that time, the Nuns substituted the Belfast Convent because it was shorter of vocations. And then came the dumbfounding news that she had TB and she was swept away. She went out to the Sanitorium in Wicklow and there she was for a year and a half. She came out of there in circumstances which are a little bit puzzling. It is alleged that she just walked out. (LAUGHS) She said she was tired of dying in that fashion.

Q. She wanted to get back to her Legion work.

A. She did. And that's one of the things that has been lodged against her Cause.

Q. Oh, really?

A. Yes. Strangely enough not made much of. You'd imagine that the celebrated official known as the Devil's Advocate would make a play about that but apparently not. There doesn't seem to be much desire on the part of Rome to find fault.

Did she then return to Dublin and resume her Legion work? A. She came back to Dublin and resumed ordinary life but this time everybody was afraid. She entered a junior praesidium and she complained bitterly that she was like a person sitting up in a coffin. (LAUGHS) That's the way we had her. (LAUGHS) Then came 1936. The English Legionaries were going to stage a big extension campaign and they wrote to us to say that they had no Legionaries with extension skill. They had the good will but they hadn't the practical acquaintance. They proposed that we would give them one Legionary for every team. An English legionary and an Irish legionary would go. We called for those willing to go over and among those who presented themselves was our lady, Edel. Well, this was breathtaking. The lady had apparently got up out of her coffin for the purpose of offering herself. So, this caused us now to think, "Why should she who was able to stand and to walk, to use her own phrase, 'be kept sitting in a coffin'? "

A good question.

A. Why should she? This consideration ended in the suggestion that we'd let her go but we'd want to put somebody with her who would know all the circumstances and moderate her. That person presented herself in Muriel Wailes because they were close friends. So, the two of them went off and they were allocated what's called the Diocese of Menevia which covered three-quarters of Wales. They started off actually in the English Diocese of Shrewsbury and they got permission for the Legion there just as an aside. Then, they moved on into Menevia and they worked very hard there. They came back after two weeks and the two of them came up and Edel was actually blooming, blooming and tremendously puffed up by the success. So were we. So that was that. Then very shortly after she came up and she said that she was going to resign her work and she was going over to Chester in England where she had touched and that she was going to find employment there. It was a great center and she was going to follow, after hours and at weekends, the routine that she had been pursuing during the fortnight. Well, of course, she wasn't really asking permission. She was just telling us. (LAUGHS) The inference was as blunt as possible. She hoped we'd consent but that if we didn't (LAUGHS) ...

She was going to go anyway!

She was an extraordinary person for getting her way. (LAUGHS) We knew what she would mean there. We had great evidence apart from her previous record as a Legionary in Dublin. We saw what she could do on extension and while we were debating this whole question as to whether we should or should not approve the Chester adventure, an awful consideration presented itself. Ruby Dennison was our Envoy in South Africa, where the distances are big, and she had frequently demanded help. The suggestion was made now, "What about Edel Quinn? Let her go out there. It would not be a bad assignment for TB. Why keep this wild bird in a cage?" We were thinking it over. Oh, yes, we brought it up at the Concilium and the Concilium approved. Then arrived a letter from Archbishop Heffernan, the Archbishop of Nairobi, and this letter said, "I understand that you have got a promising person on hand you're going to send to South Africa. Why?" he said, "South Africa already has an Envoy. My own territory has none and we were asking to start the Legion and she'd be worth any money." There was a lot of discussion and the agreement was come to: we'll send her out to East Africa.

Archbishop Heffernan's request would seem to be providential. He wanted someone at the very time that you had Edel in mind. A. We would regard it as so. I don't know whether I should go on in that strain because the sequel to that was the consideration of this proposition by the Concilium. You must remember the Concilium officers had not that sort of power. We had to come to an agreement among ourselves which took into consideration a whole lot of circumstances that a big meeting would not give value to. For instance, we did face up to the fact that she might die on the way out. Well, you can't put that sort of thing before a big meeting.

They might not see the logic behind it.

A. t

hey won't see the logic of it. A meeting is terribly governed by sentiment. Somebody might get up and say, "You don't mean that you're deliberately sending that girl off to her death, knowing it?" How would you give answer to that sort of thing? But the fact was that we were taking account of all circumstances. If she were going to die, as the prophets were to say, isn't it better she die as an Envoy than as a girl sitting in a coffin?

Q. Isn't that the way Edel herself felt?

A. That's her heavenly status.

Q. Of course.

A. And then she might get a new lease out there. So, in any case, she was put down on the agenda. At that time the Concilium was meeting out here at the back in premises which have now been wiped out by those new buildings ...

Q. That I didn't know.

A .... and met at 3 o'clock, same hour. Oh no, no! It met 8 o'clock in the evening then. The moment that became to be known a tempest arose. The sentimental considerations were in full blast. There was a girl whose name may have been mentioned to you by Muriel Wailes, Mona McCarthy. She was a very close friend also of Edel Quinn. And Mona McCarthy was a particular friend of mine. I had brought her into the Legion. I knew her people. She was a niece of that person whose name has frequently transpired, Tom Fallon. Well, I met Mona McCarthy somewhere or other and I held out my hand to shake hands with her. Her retort was she put her hands behind her back and said to me, "I cannot shake hands with you because yours are covered with blood."

That was a strong statement!

(LAUGHS) That was sweet. She took it as a dreadful act of assassination (LAUGHS) to send Edel out. Well, we began to get this sort of thing and this, of course, filled us with apprehension in regard to the Concilium. Then we heard as a crowning horror that the celebrated Dr. Elias Magennis, the ex-General of the Carmelites, had that opinion. He was a wonderful person, oh, a wonderful person. We said: "We're lost." So the day came and the premises were packed. We gradually worked along and it came to the big item. The first person to get up was Dr. Magennis. He was a powerful man with a powerful personality and appearance and he proceeded to launch out against this monstrous proposition. He treated us to accounts from Cardinal Hinsley of England, who had been Apostolic Delegate out there, and somebody else and somebody else about the difficulties of all that which would put a strong person to test and he said that it was murderous (LAUGHS) and ferocious (LAUGHS).

How did Edel herself feel? What did she say?

A. She got up at one stage and she said to him that all this had been fully explained to her, that she knew that it was a difficult enterprise. She knew it all. Nothing had been hidden from her as regards its difficulty. And then she stopped and she said "I don't want to be sent off on any picnic." (LAUGHS) Any picnic! (LAUGHS)

She was truly a Legionary.

A. So, Father Magennis ruined himself in his answer to that. He was a man in whom humor ran very strong. It was too strong for him and his answer was, "A picnic," he says, "you'll be a picnic for somebody." (LAUGHS) You'll be a picnic! (LAUGHS) At this stage there was a great roar of laughter. I got up then seizing on this and I called upon all in the hall to witness that she would not be a very substantial one. (LAUGHS) And that set them off roaring laughing again and a new atmosphere entered in at once.

So, the laughter ushered in an atmosphere of reality.

A. An atmosphere of reality came in at once and they were willing to discuss the thing in a sane fashion. When the opportunity came, the thing was proposed and seconded. Nobody voted against. Not even Dr. Magennis!

How many weeks went by before she went to Africa?

A. I'd say well over a month, probably. A lot had to be done such as booking and that sort of thing. We had to go over to London to book her on what was called the Union Castle Line. A fair crowd of us went over. I remember one incident was that she had a very big trunk of literature, Legion literature, and this had to be fortified by abundant roping. We encountered our first little difficulty in Liverpool-we went by Liverpool. The Customs insisted on tearing open all that elaborate packing looking for Irish Sweep Tickets (LAUGHS). Then there was one rather fortunate episode in the trip. She was invited down to Parkminster, the Carthusian monastery, and there she saw several members of the community. Two of them promised to say Mass for her every week during her envoyship.

I'm sure you were there at the boat to see her off.

A. Oh, yes!

Q. Would you tell us something about Edel's departure for Africa?

There were some funny episodes attached. Among those who went over to see her off were Jack Nagle and Miss Bodkin who was a great character. Miss Bodkin was one of a trio who were very close to Edel Quinn; Muriel Wailes, Mona McCarthy and Emma Bodkin. So, we went over and then just at the last moment we were notified that the departure of the boat was delayed for twenty-four hours. Two of our number could not stay for that extra day. They were due home. They were Jack Nagle and Emma Bodkin. Instead of their seeing anybody off, we went down to Euston to see them back to Dublin. The train was packed beyond all possible packing. We had just been able to secure two corner seats for them in the carriage. When the bulk of us arrived into the station and went down to the carriage by which they were travelling, we found this had been elaborately adorned for a wedding party, silver tokens and wedding bells all around the whole carriage. (LAUGHS) And who was the perpetrator of all this but Edel Quinn and a few others. (LAUGHS) She was seeing them off. They were not seeing her off. At the moment Jack Nagle and Emma Bodkin arrived on the scene, the other passengers decided this was the wedding party-they were the newly-wedded pair. (LAUGHS) Well, Miss Bodkin brazened it out but Jack Nagle was utterly embarassed and, according to Emma Bodkin's account, he put his nose into an evening paper and never took it out until he reached Holyhead. (LAUGHS) He was terribly embarassed. (LAUGHS) Just when the signal went for the starting of the train, a lot of the girls produced packets of confetti and poured them into the carriage-on all in it. (LAUGHS) We were standing there when the train departed and up came a few porters sweeping up. Apparently there had been a wedding party at each end of the train and this was one in the middle. The two porters were swearing about the amount of litter this particular party had created. (LAUGHS) There was an extra allowance of confetti on the platform which had to be swept up. That was Edel Quinn. She'd be utterly happy over a thing like that-regarding that as great fun.

Q. After Edel Quinn had been in East Africa for a time, did you begin to see a great extension of the Legion there?

You might say that she was successful in every case. You must remember that she started in very favorable conditions, that is, the Archbishop was backing the whole thing. He had pledged the support of himself and all the missionaries. Those were his arguments to us originally and he certainly tried to carry out everything. Then there was another element altogether and that was the human one. Word went around about her that she was a very jolly, nice person to have and it used to be said that the missionaries were all looking forward to her advent. She was going in to a place where there'd be no other white person but the missionary. It was the Archbishop himself that subsequently said that the furious rattling of her motor car was heard through miles of jungle by the lone missionaries who were out at the end of the trail (LAUGHS).

When we communicated that to her about the rattlings of her car, she pretended to be indignant and she said, "If that person is the one that I think it is, the friendly relations which exist between us at present will be interrupted." (LAUGHS) There was always that run of humor in her (LAUGHS). That meant, just to answer your question, that before she came to a missionary, he was willing to face· up to the worst. (LAUGHS)

Mr. Duff, may we go back to the time of departure? I'm sure our viewers would like to know about the day that she actually departed for Africa. Would you tell us a little bit about that?

The name of the boat was the Landgibby Castle, a fine white liner. It was departing from a place called Gravesend. We all went down to this place. There was free entry to the liner and so we went up onto it and circulated about. They had a band going on deck and she showed us her cabin. She had been forced to take a first class cabin because when we applied for accommodation on the boat, everything was gone except this first class cabin. As it was imperative she should go, there was no question that that was her abode. It would give her a little extra comfort, no doubt, but it fulfilled a particular role on the boat, that is, it became a"Chapel and she became the Sacristan. After she got up in the morning, the place was made ready for the Masses which followed. There was a fair number of missionaries on board and a fair number of missionary Nuns. She blended in with them at once. Now after a while on the deck of that boat, some signal was given and this meant we had to get ashore. So, we all got off and we stood on the quay wall and she stood on the boat looking at us. After a little while the boat began to move off. It was a very tense moment because we didn't think we'd ever see her again. The question in all our minds was the agonized one, "When?" So the boat drew off from us and I suppose all our eyes were a little bit wet.

Q. Do you think that Edel's eyes were also a little bit wet?

A. I would imagine that hers would not be. Very extraordinary! When we were out of her range of vision, she went off down to her cabin. Her typewriter was ·packed and she didn't attempt to open it. She had something on her mind which she wanted to get off it very quickly and she took the cap off her fountain pen, which incidentally I had given her, and she wrote her first Envoy's letter. Normally she typed. In the closing time of Pope Paul, he sent over his secretary, Father Magee and asked us to give him a letter from Edel Quinn's correspondence, a letter which we thought was the most distinctive, characteristic document which proceeded from her. Well, now, at first thought, that was asking an impossibility because she wrote at least a couple of letters every week. To pick out one from that great number would be an impossibility. But, as it was, one letter jumped to our thoughts and it was this letter that she wrote. It was a letter saying good-bye and promising to serve us faithfully. The letter is in her Life in facsimile. That's the letter we sent the Pope and he also asked along with it a memorandum stating the reason we thought it so wonderful a letter. In this letter she rendered all her feelings but then very typically she said, "I will never again refer to this subject." And she never did. She never let the softer side out again.

Q. Do you think that this letter is going to make some impact on furthering her cause especially since it was done in her own handwriting and was her first letter as an Envoy?

Oh, of course. That's why they asked for the letter. But they got a bigger letter than they expected. And in the memorandum which accompanied it its various features were brought out. Actually while we were in Rome, there was an exhibition of important documents going on and that letter and the memorandum were in that exhibition. We had the extraordinary experience of going into the Vatican where we had to give our names and the official took out a book and he said to us, "Do you not know that you are due over at the other side of the city today?" (LAUGHS) "We?" "Yes, for this exhibition."

Why do you think Edel Quinn's case should be advanced to Sainthood?

Well, in the first place, to produce a Saint is a feather in the cap of any society. Every religious congregation aims at having a Saint. It's the first desire they have, it's a guarantee. Some congregations, it is alleged, bankrupted themselves in the effort to get one of their members canonized. But then surely the mere reading of her life is a desirable thing. A great number of people have been moved by her. She has, as this Postulator says, been an incitement to every rank, every type of the population and a minor thing to render thanks to herself. There's the thanks of the Catholic Church, Edel. You haven't done badly. (LAUGHS) So, that would be why we would be wishful to see her canonized. It has often crossed our minds as to where we'd put her on the prayer card because if she's canonized, she'll have to go on the prayer card. Where exactly are we going to put her? Little though you might imagine it, that question of placing has been a most important one in connection with the evolution of the prayer card. Where is that newcomer to be placed? And everyone of these things has to be thought out. Now some day or other, we'll be thinking that out. Where? It will face us with a problem after a while because, you see, there's no room on the prayer card for any more.

You'll have to make the prayer card just a little bit bigger.

Well, then you have an objection. You're turning it into a litany of the Saints, (LAUGHS) if the process went on. From an unexpected quarter altogether, Rome is telling us we must go on with Alfie Lamb. While the complete conviction has prevailed in South America as to his sanctity, we would expect that a local place would attend to that. If they have some Legionary there whom they thought to be worthy of canonization, we'd expect it's not we that should be taking the first step but they.

Has that been done?

That was not done. Now we have one of the greatest Roman figures who has peremptorily demanded from us that we get started on Alfie Lamb in Argentina.

Mr. Duff, I would like to return to Edel Quinn. Could you tell us how you felt when you received the news that she had died?

A. I remember it to this minute. Edel Quinn had in her nice way deceived us throughout. She had given the impression from the moment she reached Africa that she was progressing steadily. Those photographs were to that extent untrue. They were picked by her to create that impression. We wrote out to her when she was there for, perhaps, a year and we said to her, "What about a little trip home? It will fortify your improvement in health and send you back in great form." "Oh," she replied, "it would only make me ridiculous, coming home after a year. Why some of the missionaries have been here their whole lives without a homecoming. You only want to make me absurd." (LAUGHS) But her real reason was that she was afraid to come home because she knew she wouldn't be let go out again for her appearance was showing the disimprovement.

Q. How did her family react when they heard of her death in Africa?

I'll tell you that. One day I got one of the first air mail letters, one of these things you fold, you know ...

Aero-grams?

A ....

aero-grams-they came out in the war for the first time-from her and I opened it and read it. She said in it, "I am in very poor form at the moment. I have never been able to pull myself together since my trip to Kisumu." When I read that letter, I said to myself, "She's telling me that she is dying." Never before had that note been sounded. As I was looking in consternation at the letter, the doorbell rang. It was the post office messenger with a telegram informing me that Edel Quinn had just died.

That news must have come as a great shock.

It was a great shock coming right with the other. So, I knew what I had to do. I at once got up on my bicycle and I rode out to Monkstown. I knocked at the door and it was opened for me by Mr. Quinn, her father. At the bottom of the stairs which came down from above was Mrs. Quinn and the moment Mrs. Quinn saw me, she burst into crying and hurried upstairs. She knew, the moment she saw me, before I'd spoken a word. That's the way the family took it. Oh, it was an anguishing moment you know. Oh, yes, you see, it came with the terrible amount of suddenness. We were in a fool's paradise thinking all was well. Oh! It was a death that herself would like to have, very little lying up, really. The end came quite suddenly. No matter how poor she felt she used to fight it and move about.

Thank you very much, Mr. Duff, for some of your personal remembrances of Edel Quinn. I'm sure that in the years to come they're going to be a great inspiration to the Legionaries throughout the world.

is available on video-cassettes and audio-cassettes from:

This interview

Concilium Legionis Mariae, Morning Star Avenue, Brunswick Street, Dublin

7, Ireland.