Tom McCabes Genealogy 2022

Copyright 1999 Chicago Tribune Company Chicago Tribune

July 8, 1999 Thursday

GORDON M. QUARNSTROM

BODY: Gordon M. Quarnstrom, 87, a longtime Chicago area resident and former public relations director for Allstate Insurance Cos., died Monday of heart failure in his Austin, Texas, home. Mr. Quarnstrom took on many different roles during his lifetime, including reporter, political aide, publicist, health agency director and candidate for Congress. After holding several journalism jobs in Washington state in the 1930s and later becoming involved in local politics, he ran for the U.S. House in 1950 and 1952, both times unsuccessfully. In between campaigns, he worked as executive secre-tary to U.S. Sen. Warren Magnuson (D-Wash.). In 1953, he moved with his family to Wilmette, where he stayed for almost 40 years. After leaving Allstate in 1971, he held several jobs, including executive director of the Chicago Metro-politan Council on Alcoholism. "The council is acutely aware of the damage that alcoholism does to health, business careers, and marital and family relationships. . . . We need an informed citizenry and we need business and industry alerted to what they can do. . . ." Mr. Quarnstrom wrote in a letter to the Tribune on Oct. 5, 1972. After his first wife, Lenore Lee Quarnstrom, died in 1991, he moved to Austin, where he continued to operate a travel writing news service he founded in 1972. He remarried in 1994. His wife, Connie Sherley, said he remained busy, despite his recent illness. Other survivors include two sons, Lee and Dean; and three grandchildren.