Tony and Fran McQuail mark their 50th anniversary with friends and family in Lucknow
BY SHAWN LOUGHLIN
Last Saturday, well-known local couple Fran and Tony McQuail marked their 50th wedding anniversary at the Lucknow Community Centre - 50 years to the day - with a special potluck dinner and many of their friends and family members attending.
It was on May 24, 1975 that Frances Fuson, the daughter of William Meeker Fuson and Helen Finley Fuson, married James Anthony (Tony) McQuail, the son of James Anthony McQuail Jr. and Virginia Swartzentruber McQuail. They were wed at their residence - both then and now - their beloved Meeting Place Organic Farm near St. Helens. The ceremony, specifically, took place within the farm’s orchard.
The couple celebrated a Quaker Meeting for Worship for Marriage, at which the bride and groom say their vows to each other “in the presence of God and these our friends.”
Once married, the McQuails continued to live and work at Meeting Place Organic Farm. Tony worked as a farmer, researcher, intervenor in the Hydro Transmission corridor hearings, a landfill site supervisor, executive assistant to the Ontario Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, and as a certified holistic management educator. Fran also worked as a farmer, a nurse’s assistant, a Bruce County Library Supervisor and Lucknow Librarian, a constituency assistant for former MP Paul Klopp, and a holistic management educator.
Neither Tony nor Fran are fully retired yet. They are, instead, semi-retired and still helping out at Meeting Place, which they sold to their daughter Katrina in 2016.
The McQuails had two children: Rachel McQuail and the aforementioned Katrina. They have five grandchildren: Elliot and Emily McQuail (Rachel) and Stella, Imogen and Hustis McQuail (Katrina).
Over the years, the McQuails have been involved in a number of groups and associations, including the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), the New Democratic Party, the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario and the Huron-Bruce Swingers square dance club. Tony, specifically, has been involved with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, the National Farmers Union, Foodland Hydro Committee, Holistic Management Canada, and Farmers for Climate Solutions, while Fran has been involved with the Blyth Festival Singers, Huron Song and the Huron Tract Spinners and Weavers.
The couple and their family and friends celebrated last Saturday at the Lucknow Community Centre with a delicious potluck supper, followed by dancing with the Devon Drive Drifters, complete with a slide show featuring highlights from the past 50 years. Chris and Sally McQuail, the couple’s brother and sister-in-law from Pennsylvania, and Helen Riehl, with whom Tony first boarded when he came to Canada as a hired hand at Bisset Brothers’ Dairy in Saltford, were among the notable guests at the celebration.