Bernadette Quinn

1927 - 2016

Bernadette Moloney Quinn - "Dette" - passed away of natural causes on Sunday, April 3, 2016, at Con Carino in Pasadena, California. Born in Garden City, New York, on April 19, 1927, she was 88 years old. In addition to her parents and four siblings, she was preceded in death by her husband, John J. Quinn, Jr., in 1992.

Dette was the fourth of James Patrick Moloney and Delia Haugh's five children. Upon graduating from Archbishop McDonell High School in 1945, she briefly attended Ladycliff College, Highland Falls, New York, before embarking on a career in retail sales. It was when she was working as a buyer for B. Altman & Company that she met her future husband, whom she married in October 1951.

The newly wed Quinns first set up their household in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, when John was working for Gimbel's in Philadelphia. Shortly after relocating to Havertown, Dette used her experience as a buyer along with a keen eye for style in launching her first venture, "Dette Originals." While feeding, diapering and caring for their first three children, Dette was a one-woman enterprise, designing and manufacturing a line of holiday aprons at home that were sold in Philadelphia department stores. Leftovers haunted the family attic for years.

After their salad years in the Philadelphia suburbs, Dette and John moved to Little Silver, New Jersey, in 1956, where they doubled the size of their brood. It was there, as a congregant at the Church of the Nativity, in Fair Haven, that Dette helped with a fundraiser fashion show as a runway model. She followed that with appearances on the popular quiz shows "Concentration" and "The Price is Right," and enjoyed it all so much that she then began a professional modeling career. Dette appeared in numerous print and TV ads during the 1960s, including commercials for M&Ms, Right Guard, Listerine, Palmolive Soap, Kodak, Lestoil and SOS. She was also featured as a 'Breck Woman.'

Dette and John's work in New York City, combined with the six growing kids, pushed them to relocate closer to the Big Apple, and in 1965 they left the Jersey shore for a larger home in Summit. After wrapping her modeling career, she and a friend opened Plumquin Ltd. at the Captain's Barn in Mountainside, New Jersey.

When John's work took him from New York to Los Angeles, the family made the push west, landing in San Marino, California, in 1972. Dette was bitten by the college bug while her children were attending, and finally enrolled herself, enjoying a successful academic career at Pasadena City College. For many years she was an agent with Bliss-Keeler Realty. Once the house emptied of children, Dette and John moved to Pasadena in 1990. The move allowed Dette to flex her innate design muscle, converting a neglected, drab property into a truly elegant and inviting home.

Young Dette was a fiercely devoted Catholic, volunteering on church committees and making sure the family attended church services and catechism classes weekly. She was an active member of the Junior League in her earlier years, and the Pasadena Art Alliance, Pasadena Garden Club, and the Town Club in her later years. Ever a gracious and charming hostess and attentive friend, Dette was at home in any social setting.

Dette was an adventurer who enjoyed people, and people enjoyed her. She preferred to view no one as a stranger. Her trips to France, Hawaii and Hong Kong remain family legends. In the mid-1980s, Dette and John shared a year-long happy adventure as they sojourned through Europe, renting houses for several weeks at a time, and becoming inhabitants of each village where they landed. Still, there was little Dette enjoyed more than a book, a play, a good movie, a new restaurant, or keeping current with family and friends.

She is survived by her six children, Jake Quinn and his wife Tina of Asheville, North Carolina, Laura Quinn of Pasadena, California, Paul Quinn and his wife Nicole of Accord, New York, David Quinn and his wife Sharie of Menlo Park, California, Martha Saldumbide and her husband Chuck of Sierra Madre, California, and Susan Quinn of Monrovia, California. Dette is also survived by her eight grandchildren, Ian Quinn, Conor Quinn, Cameron Quinn, Caitlin Quinn, Jackson Quinn, Spencer Saldumbide, Caroline Quinn and Cole Quinn.

A memorial service will be held for Bernadette Moloney Quinn at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, June 21, 2016, at Holy Family Church, 1501 Fremont Avenue, South Pasadena, California.