The Magura Family Story
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Our little Magura family comes all the way back from Germany, where our roots are nearly untraceable at this point, but we do know the patriarch of our branch came to the U.S. shores in 1903 at the young age of 16. For one reason or another, he headed straight for Michigan, and that is where our story begins.
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Joseph Magura Comes to Michigan
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Joseph Magura (b. 24 Feb, 1877) grew up in an unknown southern part of Germany, son to Jacob Magura and Mary Poronowech. When German-speaking Joseph decided to make the big move across the ocean in 1903, it appears that he did so without his parents, and possibly without any siblings either, as we have identified none. The "why" of the move is completely unknown.
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What little we do know is that he landed in New York and was living in Michigan by 1906 when he married a young Luxembourgish dressmaker named Marguerite Kerschen, who was about five years older than he. The two lived in Detroit, and Joseph found employment as a butcher. Just 10 months after their wedding they welcomed their first baby, Anna Catherine Magura (b. 21 Mar, 1907). A second baby followed shortly after with the birth of my great-grandmother, Mary Margaret Magura (b. 21 Apr, 1908). Mary was born at home at 670 18th Street, Detroit. The sisters were the first generation of Maguras born in America.
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By 1918, Joseph, who was short, stout of stature, and had light-colored hair and blue eyes, had given up the butcher trade, and found employment as a repairman for Hupp Motor Car Company in Detroit, where he worked for at least two years.
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The Maguras in the Roaring Twenties
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Heading into the 1920s, the Magura family moved out of the City of Detroit, likely as Joseph's auto job went away. This was about the same time that construction began on the Ambassador Bridge from Detroit to Ontario, practically right in the family's front yard. Had they stayed, they would have had a glorious and full view of the bridge from their front porch. Instead, they shifted just a few miles west to the towns of Royal Oak and Clawson, Michigan by 1930. Their Detroit home has since been demolished and the lot lies empty and weed-covered in the shadow of the Ambassador.
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Right around the time of the big move, the two daughters had beaus and got married. The first to marry was eldest daughter, Anna Magura, who wed Celestine D. Johnson on Sept. 15, 1926. The couple settled in Royal Oak by 1930 at the latest. They had three children in quick succession: Virginia Johnson (b.1927), Celestine Johnson, Jr. (b.1929), and Bonnie Lou Johnson (b.1931).
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Less than a year later, Mary Magura and her beau, James Edward McClure, unexpectedly eloped to Bowling Green, Ohio on June 29, 1927. Five months later they welcomed their first child, Edward James McClure. Shortly after, they had their second and last child, Jack Joseph McClure--my grandfather.
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The Magura patriarch spent the 1920s and 1930s working as a construction carpenter and living with wife Marguerite at 706 Gargantua in Clawson, Michigan.
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The End of the Magura Line
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After Joseph and Marguerite had only two daughters, our line of the Maguras came to its end, nominally, by the mid-twentieth century. On May 14, 1947, Marguerite (Kerschen) Magura passed away at home at 706 Gargantua, Clawson, Michigan, of a cerebral embolism brought on my arteriosclerosis, and endocarditis. The Luxembourg citizen was buried in Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Detroit, Michigan.
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Her husband lived as a widower until his passing on December 14, 1959 in Michigan. He is also interred at Mt. Olivet Cemetery.