Richard H. Magaziner, Upper Dublin official
Richard H. Magaziner, 91, a former Upper Dublin Township commissioner, died of congestive heart failure Thursday, April 22, in a nursing unit at the Quadrangle in Haverford, where he had lived for 10 years.
Richard H. Magaziner, 91, a former Upper Dublin Township commissioner, died of congestive heart failure Thursday, April 22, in a nursing unit at the Quadrangle in Haverford, where he had lived for 10 years.
His surviving brother, Henry, was the regional historical architect for the National Park Service from 1972 to 1988.
Their father was the architect Louis Magaziner.
Richard Magaziner spent his career, from 1953 to his 1984 retirement, with the Center City and Valley Forge offices of Connecticut General Life Insurance Co. and its successors.
He then worked as an independent financial adviser, son Stephen said.
In Upper Dublin, Mr. Magazine served an appointed term as commissioner from February to December 1969 and served as an elected commissioner from January 1974 to December 1981.
Between the appointed and elected terms, his son said, Mr. Magaziner was a member of the parks and recreation board and, from 1982 to 1987, a member of the planning agency advisory board.
Born in the Powelton neighborhood of Philadelphia, Mr. Magaziner graduated from Central High School in 1935 and earned a bachelor's degree in 1939 at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a member of a rowing crew.
While in college, he enlisted in the Navy Reserve in 1938 and was called in 1940 to what became a 51/2-year military career.
He first served on an oil tanker that ran between the West Coast and Hawaii, and then was stationed near Iceland.
As the quartermaster of a submarine chaser, he saw combat when it sank a German submarine off Block Island, then received his officer's commission and studied communications at Harvard University.
His final Navy assignment returned him to the Pacific, where a kamikaze plane exploded just before hitting his light cruiser.
At the Unitarian Church of Germantown, Mr. Magaziner was, from July 1989 to June 1990, the president of the board, which he had joined in 1987.
For the Visiting Nurse Association of Abington, he was treasurer and a member of the board of directors for community services from 1983 to 2003 and secretary of the community service foundation board from 1995 to 2003.
He was a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Besides his son and brother, Mr. Magaziner is survived by his wife, Irene; another son, James; a daughter, Sally Oliver; five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
A memorial was set for 1:30 p.m. Saturday, June 19, at the Unitarian Church of Germantown, Lincoln Drive near Wayne Avenue.
