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‘Gene’ Magee, lofty visionary
• His aerial photos provide a glimpse of Tucson dating back to the ’30s.
A memorial service will be held Saturday for A.E. ”Gene” Magee, a longtime electrical engineer whose hobby of taking aerial photographs as far back as the 1930s has left a visual record of a vanished Tucson.
Mr. Magee, who died Nov. 3, was 92.
Many of his photos, which he sold to the city in 1988, were used in ”Above Tucson Then and Now,” a book of photos assembled by James T. Glinski, who in 1995 took photos from the same lofty viewpoints Mr. Magee had used decades earlier.
”I remember his sense of humor and generosity with his time and how helpful he was when I was getting this project together,” Glinski said. ”He was like a gift to me.”
While Mr. Magee had been a pilot for decades, he was approaching 90 when Glinski took his aerial photos.
”He loved to fly,” Glinski recalled. ”He’d go out to the airport with me, but he didn’t go up. Still, he was young of heart, sharp-witted and loved to crack a joke and have fun. He just had that sense of adventure about him.”
Without Mr. Magee’s photos, there would have been no book, Glinski said. ”Nothing like that would have happened without his helpfulness, and I feel privileged to have known him.”
Mr. Magee’s only child, Darel Magee, said his father enjoyed himself no matter what he was doing.
The senior Magee came to Tucson from Oklahoma in 1924 to join two older brothers who lived here. One was a dentist; the other owned a service station, where Mr. Magee lived, sleeping on the couch.
After graduating from Tucson High School in 1925, Mr. Magee continued living in the garage and doing odd jobs there and at other places to pay his way through the University of Arizona. He received a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering in 1930.
A short time later, Mr. Magee got a job at Tucson Gas and Electric Co., now Tucson Electric Power Co., and after that was manager of the Tucson Rapid Transit bus company for eight years.
He later co-founded Western Ways Photographic Services, and in 1948 opened Magee Engineering, where he spent the next 47 years.
Darel Magee said he followed in his father’s footsteps as an electrical engineer and worked with him for 39 years.
During that time, Magee Engineering worked on more than 100 local schools. The company also worked on City Hall and the Superior Courts building.
Mr. Magee was the engineer of record for Tucson International Airport before its last remodeling. He also worked on the Tucson Convention Center and more than 30 buildings at the University of Arizona, including the Main Library and the medical school.
”He was proud of all the jobs that he did,” his son said. ”Proud of the product of his engineering talents, but equally proud of his photographs and proud of his family.
”He was a workaholic who had fun doing his jobs. He’d get up at 3 in the morning to finish a project if he needed to, and almost never got up after 5 a.m.,” Darel Magee said. ”He just had a zest for living and liked to have a good time. He was a wonderful, hard-working and optimistic person.”
In addition to his son, Mr. Magee is survived by his daughter-in-law, Anne Magee, and grandchildren Kimberly, Abraham and Kevin. He was preceded in death by his wife, Pauline.
The memorial service is set for 9:30 a.m. Saturday at Evergreen Mortuary & Cemetery, 3015 N. Oracle Road.
The family requests that remembrances be made in the form of donations in Mr. Magee’s name to Tucson Medical Center Hospice Services, 5301 E. Grant Road, Tucson, Ariz. 85712, or to the American Cancer Society, 1636 N. Swan Road, Tucson, Ariz. 85712.
(Dated Nov 11, 1999)
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Former training center head recalled as ‘noble’
Memorial services for William H. Creamer, director the Arizona Training Center for the Handicapped from 1954 to 1976, will be held Friday.
Mr. Creamer died yesterday from a chronic heart condition. He was 86.
A prominent figure in the community, Mr. Creamer was a devoted church member, an energetic community volunteer, and an avid tennis player.
He was among a group of men who founded the original Tucson Racquet Club, which was next to the El Conquistador Hotel where El Con Mall now stands.
”He was my old doubles partner. I will miss him very much,” said longtime friend George Rosenberg, former managing editor of the Tucson Daily Citizen .
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y, Mr. Creamer moved to Tucson in 1937 because of his arthritis.
During his first few years in southern Arizona, he worked at several guest ranches, including ones in Tubac and Sonoita.
From 1942 to 1945, Mr. Creamer served as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army during World War II.
He taught at Green Fields Country Day School from 1948 to 1952. Subsequently, Mr. Creamer completed a master’s degree in mathematics at Columbia University.
For 22 years, Mr. Creamer served as director of the Arizona Training Center for the Handicapped, a non-profit vocational rehabilitation center. (It is now called Tetra Corp.)
Friends recalled Mr. Creamer for his general thoughtfulness.
”He was very much loved and respected by the community at large,” said Rev. Roger Douglas at St. Philip’s in the Hills Episcopal Church.
For more than 50 years, Mr. Creamer was active in his church, as a Sunday school teacher, a vestry member and senior warden. He also organized several fund-raising campaigns.
”He was a noble man. The last of a breed of people at St. Philips with a great loyalty to the church,” Douglas said.
Friend Marvin Snodgrass, who knew Mr. Creamer for about 50 years, said he had a friendly manner.
”Just as he lived – whether it was playing tennis or cards or at the Training Center – he was a sweet guy,” Snodgrass said.
Longtime friend John Donahue agreed.
”I don’t think Bill had the slightest malice toward anybody. He was just a nice guy,” he said.
Mr. Creamer made himself visible in the community as a board member or officer of several organizations, including the YMCA, the Arthritis Foundation, Kiwanis Club of the Desert, Easter Seal Society, St. Lukes’ in the Desert, Country Club Estates Homeowners Association, and Camp ECHO.
He also was active with the Amherst College Alumni Association of Tucson, as a chairman of planned giving for the class of 1936.
From 1967 to 1995, Mr. Creamer was secretary of the Breakfast Club. He also was a member of the Graduates Club, Foothills Forum and Tucson Country Club.
Mr. Creamer is survived by his wife Lucy; son, William H. Creamer Jr., and his wife, Catherine; stepchildren Allan Pickford and Susan Berryman and her husband, Peter; eight grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren. A brother Thomas and his wife, Phoebe, live in North Carolina.
Funeral services will be conducted by Rev. Douglas at St. Philip’s in the Hills Episcopal Church, 4440 N. Campbell Ave. at 3:30 p.m. Friday.
The family suggests that memorial contributions be made to either the Tucson Medical Center Foundation Hospice Fund, 5301 E. Grant Road, Tucson, Ariz. 85712, or the Preservation Endowment at St. Philip’s church, P.O. Box 65840, Tucson, Ariz. 85728.
(Dated Nov 17, 1999)
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1,000 attend rites for Shaol Pozez, 74
• The Payless Shoe Source founder’s wealth supported the Tucson Jewish community.
Shaol Lee Pozez, co-founder of Payless Shoe Source, was remembered yesterday as a quiet man of generosity and virtue.
Mr. Pozez, 74, died Monday.
Memorial services yesterday at Congregation Anshei Israel drew an estimated 1,000 people, including University of Arizona basketball coach Lute Olson, National Bank of Tucson founder Robert Sarver and 200 family members from around the country.
”He related well to everyone,” said his wife of 50 years, Evelyn. ”Whether it be a senator in Washington, D.C., or in the back yard, talking to the yard man.”
Perhaps the wealthiest man in Tucson, Mr. Pozez usually opted to remain in the background, giving to charity.
But he also gave of himself, especially to the Jewish community.
”My father was all about community,” said son, Mitchell Pozez of Tucson. ”He wouldn’t just write checks. He wanted to get involved.”
When Mr. Pozez came to Tucson in 1979, the Jewish community lacked the ”infrastructure” it has today, said his son.
Mr. Pozez played a big part in building the Tucson Hebrew Academy and the Jewish Family & Children’s Service here.
Mr. Pozez also served on the board of directors for the Pima Air & Space Museum and Tucson Medical Center.
In Topeka, Kan., where he was born, Mr. Pozez gave to the Pozez Education Center in Storemont-Vail Health Care Center and Temple Beth Shalom.
”The thing about him was that if you met him it was impossible not to like him,” his son said last night.
Mitchell Pozez, who is president of The Fountains Continuum of Care Inc., said there were three tenets to his father’s life: Keep a good attitude, and you can do anything you want to do; give for the sheer joy of giving and not for personal acknowledgment; family is everything.
”He never missed a bar mitzvah, wedding or funeral,” his son said. ”It always seemed like we were in a plane going to one of those.”
Mr. Pozez was an avid aviator who had logged more than 13,000 hours – nearly 1 1/2 years – in the air.
”My dad was one hell of a pilot,” Mitchell Pozez said. ”It’s the freedom of going where you want to go and nobody telling you what to do. My dad really freed his soul in his airplane.”
Once, the father flew himself and his son on a twin-engine prop plane from Kansas to Israel.
”I grew up flying with my dad,” the son said. ”I didn’t ever take a trip in a car until I owned my own.”
Mr. Pozez’s father emigrated from Poland to the United States in 1915.
When Germany invaded Poland, most of Mr. Pozez’s remaining family in Europe were killed.
After the war, Mr. Pozez immigrated to Israel. The country became like a second home for the Navy veteran.
He took dozens of U.S. senators and congressmen to Israel over the years, including U.S. Sen. John McCain and Rep. Jim Kolbe.
”He was very active politically,” his son said. ”Anybody who supported Israel, he’d support.”
Mr. Pozez’s father owned a department store in Topeka, and that inspired him to start up a self-service shoe store in 1956 with his cousin, Louis.
Today, annual sales for Payless Shoe Source top $4 billion for 4,449 stores in North America.
Payless went public in 1961 and was sold to May Department Stores in 1979, which in turn sold the chain three years ago.
Survivors include wife Evelyn; children Melanie Blumburg of Chicago; Bill Pozez of Langhome, Penn.; Shelley Baker of Tucson; and Mitchell Pozez of Tucson.
(Dated Nov 18, 1999)
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