Founding Principal of Two Huntington Schools Passes Away
Anthony L. Quintilian loved sports, especially baseball. Had he pursued offers from several big league clubs instead of completing a teaching degree at New York University, the history of the Huntington School District might have been different.
Mr. Quintilian, the founding principal of Flower Hill Elementary School and J. Taylor Finley Junior High School, passed away on February 10 at Grand Oaks Rehabilitation Center. He was 95 and had been living in Palm Coast, Florida.
A graduate of New York University (BA, 1937) and Columbia University (MA, 1947), Mr. Quintilian grew up in Marlboro, New York, a small farming community in the Hudson Valley, seven miles north of Newburgh and near West Point.
The future Huntington administrator graduated from Marlboro High School in 1933. At the time, the school housed students in grades 1-12. He met his future wife of 65 years, Mary A. Morrow, in the first grade at Marlboro.
“In this day and age we talk about individual attention; we surely had it in our small classes,” Mr. Quintilian said in 1964. “There were only 15 in our senior class, but all went to college and are now doctors, lawyers and teachers.”
Vacation periods were spent working on a farm, helping to support a family that included nine children. In high school, athletics were his “whole life” and he played a variety of varsity sports, along with semi-pro baseball from the age of 15.
Mr. Quintilian earned an academic scholarship to NYU and played varsity baseball there, starring at catcher. He garnered many “big league” offers and tryouts with the New York Giants and Pittsburgh Pirates, but wanted to finish his college education.
“Ever since I could remember, I wanted to be a school coach,” Mr. Quintilian said in 1955 during an interview for a district newsletter. “When I graduated from high school it was the logical thing for me to study physical education in college – there were no doubts at all.”
Taught in Central Valley
Prior to coming to Huntington in October 1946, Mr. Quintilian taught physical education, civics, science and business math at Central Valley High School from 1938-42 and physical education and business math at Somers High School in 1941/42 and 1945/46. He coached varsity soccer, basketball and baseball teams and continued to play semi-pro baseball right up until the time he came to Huntington.
He enlisted in the U.S. Navy in March 1942 and was commissioned an ensign the following November. Mr. Quintilian served in the Naval Air Corps for more than three years, rising in rank to lieutenant, senior grade. He became the director of athletics in the Naval Air Corps’ V-5 physical, military and academic training program before returning to Somers in Westchester as director of physical education and coaching.
Mr. Quintilian worked at Toaz as a physical education teacher for less than three years before he was named a principal. According to a 1955 district publication that was sent to homes in the community, Mr. Quintilian believed “that each child should be given the opportunity to grow at his own rate and ability and to do his best.” He also believed that “continuous kindness and sympathy on the part of teachers and parents is needed by every child to help him develop to his full potential.”
He earned a Professional Diploma at Columbia University in 1955 and continually undertook graduate studies in administration. Known as an innovative educator, Mr. Quintilian had a hand in many aspects of the district.
First Flower Hill Principal
Appointed the first full-time principal of Nathan Hale School in June 1948, he stayed there for six years before being appointed Flower Hill’s founding principal on June 8, 1954. He also served chairman of the district’s curriculum committee for more than three years, chaired the foreign language committee and contributed to various other curriculum committees.
On the eve of his own retirement, Superintendent J. Taylor Finley sent a letter dated June 18, 1963 to Mr. Quintilian. Mr. Finley wrote that before leaving he “would like to take a few minutes to thank you for your loyalty and cooperation for Lo! these many years both as an elementary principal and teacher at Toaz. As I look back on those years, our relationship has been one of the most pleasant of the many that I have had. I always felt that our philosophies were closely akin and that your judgment was sound. Your sense of humor, a necessary ingredient in all school administrators, gave me many a chuckle yet, when necessary I knew you could be firm.”
As principal of Robert K. Toaz Junior High School, it was Mr. Finley who welcomed Mr. Quintilian to his building in 1946 and who later worked closely with him as a fellow administrator. “All in all I’ve felt that your school was in the best of hands and the fact that your staff and parental relationships have run smoothly over the years is proof,” Mr. Finley wrote in his 1963 letter. “My wish for you is that the new superintendent will think as highly of you as I have and that things will continue in the future as they have in the past. I’m positive they will.”
Finley’s Founding Principal
As the construction of what would later be named J. Taylor Finley Junior High School continued, Mr. Quintilian applied to be its founding principal in a letter to then Superintendent Dr. Charles St. Clair on September 14, 1964. He met with members of the Huntington School Board to discuss the position on November 17 at 8:05 p.m. and was appointed to the post less than a week later, effective January 1, 1965.
Just as he had done at Flower Hill, Mr. Quintilian quickly went to work organizing the new building, planning the educational program and assembling the faculty and staff. Toward the end of his career as Finley’s principal, an elementary school wing was created to relieve over crowding at other schools in the district.
For many summers, Mr. Quintilian and his family operated the Shepherd Day Camp, which was located near Flower Hill School. He co-founded and served as the first president of the Long Island Association of Private Day Camps.
Mr. Quintilian announced his intention to retire in a June 9, 1970 letter to then Superintendent William F. Keough, who would later be held hostage in the U.S. Embassy in Iran in the aftermath of the Islamic revolution there. “My years in Huntington as teacher and principal have been most rewarding and gratifying,” Mr. Quintilian wrote. “I shall cherish my relationships, particularly with the students I have had. I also take this opportunity to thank you for all the considerations I have received over the years.”
Trustees accepted the retirement request at a meeting on June 16, 1970. The Huntington School Board unanimously passed a resolution expressing “sincere appreciation” for Mr. Quintilian’s 25 years of service to the district and extending “best wishes for a happy retirement so well deserved.”
It was a happy – and long – retirement, stretching for nearly 40 years. Mr. Quintilian is survived by his son, Dennis and daughter, Kathy, their spouses, four grandchildren and four great grandchildren. A funeral Mass was celebrated last week at St. Patrick’s Church on Main Street in Huntington. Interment followed at St. Patrick’s Cemetery.
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