The speech that’ll be delivered to students and parents at Saratoga Central Catholic’s graduation ceremony next week is a century in the making.
It was written by Leo J. Quinn, a valedictorian of the 1923 class at the school (which was then named St. Peter’s). Just days before he was set to deliver it, he tragically drowned in Saratoga Lake.
His speech was recently found by his great-nephew, a Ballston Spa resident who shares the same name. Quinn was sorting through documents that a family member bequeathed to him when he came across detailed journals from his grandfather along with a photo album full of papers.
“I just happened to find this one sheet of paper that was typewritten,” Quinn said.
“Is this Leo’s speech?” was scrawled across the back of the document. That question prompted Quinn to do some more research and he found a chilling account of his great-uncle’s death in The Saratogian.
It describes how Rev. Father W. Stanton De Lee, assistant rector of St. Peter’s Catholic Church, attempted to assist the boy, who was 16 at the time and not a strong swimmer. After swimming in deep water and somersaulting off of a diving board, the young Quinn suffered from a cramp. While De Lee tried to help him, onlookers thought that the reverend was drowning and pulled him out; they didn’t reach the boy in time.
“It really painted powerful pictures in your mind,” Quinn said of the story.
“Although he was but sixteen years old, he was president and valedictorian of this year’s class of St. Peter’s High School and was to have been graduated with his class at St. Peter’s Catholic Church next Sunday morning,” the story reads.
Growing up, Quinn knew very little about his great-uncle. That changed when he came across another Saratogian article that covered the 1923 graduation.
“Everything I know about my great uncle Leo, I learned in that newspaper account of the graduation,” Quinn said.
During his time at school, he served as head altar boy and planned to attend Holy Cross and study for the priesthood.
“The death of Leo Joseph Quinn, beloved and honored member of the class, however, threw a deep gloom of sadness over the entire commencement and the graduates could not forget that only yesterday they had attended his last funeral services,” the Saratogian reported.
He was awarded two posthumous honors at the ceremony.
Quinn, who also attended Saratoga Central Catholic and graduated in 1986, reached out to the school to see if administrators would be interested in having the speech read to students all these years later.
“I immediately said to him we have to tell the kids this story,” said Principal Christopher Signor, who attended the school with Quinn.
“Kids don’t think that life ends. They certainly don’t think of their own mortality and I think it’s good to think about mortality and as a catholic school we aim to teach people how to live well and I think it’s important for 17 and 18-year-olds to hear that they’re not immortal and make the most of all the time you have on earth. Here was a fine young man that made an awful lot out of the first 17 years of his life and if that’s all you’re given then that’s all you’re given.”
The speech reflects on the value of feeling alive and how the students are on the precipice of something new.
“This is the first glimpse of the glamour that Life’s school has held out to us,” reads one line.
It goes on to read “The high school graduate is comparatively young in years. He has all [his] life before him. He has been getting ready for life during all the years of his past existence, but as yet he has not really lived.”
That last line especially is particularly sorrowful, however, when Quinn speaks, he doesn’t plan to focus on the tragedy as much as the encouraging aspects of the speech. He’ll also put the speech into historical context, describing what life was like in 1923.
“Television was still four years away from being invented. Entertainment was going to vaudeville or the movies or hopping a trolley to go to a dance somewhere or a basketball game,” Quinn said.
He hopes it will inspire students to play an active role in recording their family history.
“I am encouraging people to sit mom and dad, grandparents down in front of their phones, turn on their videos and ask them 150 questions about their lives,” Quinn said.
“When I graduated from Spa Catholic, all four of my grandparents were in attendance. When I graduated from Siena, only my mother’s mother was left,” Quinn said. “I would love to see an interview of them and just talking about their lives and hearing it from their perspective and with their personalities and all that so that’s something I was encouraged people to do and that’s my message here.”
Graduation is set for Friday, June 23 at St. Clement’s Church.
“I think it’s going to be very impactful for the kids,” Signor said.
It’ll also be unlike any graduation speech Signor – and no doubt most of the families there – have ever heard.
“I’ve been in education over 30 years. [At graduation] you’ll usually hear the warnings and the cajoling and the prodding and the motivation but this is so human and so real. This will probably go down in my career as the most moving story,” Signor said.
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