1909 – 1971 (February 11)
Vincent Augustine McQuade, son of Owen McQuade and Kathryn McCarthy, was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, on June 16, 1909. His grammar school education was obtained at Saint Mary’s Parochial School, Lawrence, and his high school education at Augustinian Academy, Staten Island, New York. Received into the novitiate on August 15, 1926, he professed simple vows on August 16, 1927, and solemn vows on August 16, 1930. Following his philosophical studies at Villanova, where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1931, he attended Augustinian College, Washington, DC. He was ordained to the priesthood on June 12, 1934.
Father McQuade received a Master of Arts degree in sociology from The Catholic University of America in 1935 and was assigned to continue graduate work there while serving as sub-master of professed at Augustinian College from 1935 to 1938. His doctorate in sociology was granted in 1938 and he was assigned to Villanova College as a teacher. While teaching, he served successively as counselor, registrar and director of admissions, dean of the College, director of the Veterans Guidance Bureau, and assistant to the president. All this served as preparation for the assignment later entrusted to him to establish a new college in North Andover, Mass. He did so and was appointed the founding president of Merrimack College on December 18, 1946. From that year until his resignation in 1968, he labored vigorously as president to create a flourishing college from the original family house, a Quonset hut, a cinderblock classroom building, and wooded land to a 240-acre campus.
Father McQuade, who was an indefatigable laborer in the Lord’s vineyard, was recalled to Villanova in 1968 to the position of treasurer of the Province and director of the Augustinian Educational Association. Active in the Catholic Sociological Association, in which he served as president, Father McQuade sat on a number of state and national educational commissions and was honored with an LL. D. by Villanova in 1956.Stricken suddenly by a heart attack in Saint Mary’s Hall, he died at Villanova on February 11, 1971 at the age of 61. He is buried in the Augustinian plot at Saint Mary’s Cemetery, Lawrence, MA.
