Norma Quinn, 94, mother of former congressman Jack Quinn

“Which one?” she would reply.

Mrs. Quinn knew which of her five sons the acquaintance was inquiring about: Her eldest, Jack, a congressman-turned-college president, has been a well-connected public figure for most of his adult life.

Inevitably, he was the subject of public interest, but Mrs. Quinn and her late husband, John F. Quinn Sr., raised five boys. She expressed a simple, equitable and enduring love for them all, topped only by one group of people: her grandchildren.

Mrs. Quinn died Nov. 22. She was 94. On Friday afternoon, four of her sons gathered inside the church at Our Lady of Victory National Shrine and Basilica, where her life will be celebrated at 10:30 a.m. Monday in a Mass of Christian Burial.

The former Norma Ide was born in Buffalo and graduated from South Park High School. She and her husband John F. “Jack” Quinn Sr. were married in Holy Family Catholic Church. The couple were married 54 years until her husband’s death in 2004.

Jack, Jeff, Tom and Mike Quinn reminisced about their mother as a steadfast, humble woman who ran a household of six men, including her husband, and five sons born over the span of nine years. (Norma and John Sr. lost a sixth son in a miscarriage.)

“She was a very strong-willed woman,” Jeff Quinn said. “Very caring, and fair.”

Tom Quinn added, “She was the glue. She was the shoulders we all stood on, including my dad.”

The brothers – one of whom, Kevin, wasn’t present because he was flying in from his home in Florida – remembered their mother’s time serving as their Cub Scout leader. They recalled how she worked for 20 years at the department store L.L. Berger while still taking care of her boys’ school obligations and outside activities. For much of that time, her husband held two full-time jobs.

“She was a woman before her time,” Jack Quinn said. “She worked, and she raised…