Howard Maguire died suddenly at Bridlewood Trails Retirement Residence on Sunday, November 9, 2014 in his 85th year.
Howard had the distinction of founding the community newspaper, The Stittsville News in December 1957.
In 1972, he followed a new career path becoming the first fulltime Fire Chief for Stittsville/Richmond and Goulbourn Townships.
“I would say that Howard Maquire was a man committed to community service,” says Donna Donna Keays-Hockey, a former manager of the Goulbourn Museum.
“First through his work at the Stittsville News, of which he was founder. But also through his decades of service as Fire Chief of Goulbourn Township. This small, essentially volunteer, organization must have faced some tremendous challenges in trying to provide emergency services to a rapidly growing community. It would take great leadership on Howard’s part to pull the group together into the well-respected and effective fire fighting operation that it became,” she told StittsvilleCentral.ca.
Howard and wife Molly were residents of Stittsville for 60 years and raised their family here. In February 1966 they moved to their beloved farm on nearby Fernbank Road which they purchased from the Thompson family. In his spare time Howard farmed and raised purebred Charolais cattle.
Howard is survived by his beloved wife of 64 years, Molly (nee Watson); children Jeffrey (Kathleen), Randy (Mary Lynne), Linda Parisien (Allan) and Susan (Steve Kroll); grandchildren, Craig, Heather (Indy Jayasekara), Joe (Joy), Jenny (Josh Burchat) and Alexander Kroll; three great grandchildren Arabella, Adrianna and Lily; his brothers Lloyd (Barbara), Milford (Rose), Phillip (Gloria); brothers-in-law Wayne Watson (Margaret) and Jan Watson (Barbara). Predeceased by his parents Howard and Pearl Maguire (Coumbs); sisters Lillian Henry (late Len), Florence Coumbs (late Christie), Joyce McCabe (late Jim) and brother Earl (Lorene).
Friends may attend a visitation at the Garden Chapel of Tubman Funeral Homes, 3440 Richmond Rd. (between Baseline Rd. and Bayshore Dr.), Nepean on Thursday from 1 to 4 and 6:30 to 9 p.m. Funeral service will be held at Stittsville United Church on Friday at 11:30 a.m. followed by a reception. Interment at Highland Park Cemetery.
Those wishing may make memorial donations to the Heart and Stroke Foundation or the Ottawa Mission.
Condolences, donations or tributes may be made at www.tubmanfuneralhomes.com.
I have been told by a co-worker that before he founded the ‘Stittsville News’ he was an excellent typesetter / Linotype Operator with the Government Printing Bureau.
Ian your Co-worker is correct my Grandfather did work for the Government Printing Bureau as a Typesetter and Linotype Operator. His main job as a Linotype Operator was setting type for Hansard, the daily verbatim report of proceedings in the House of Commons.
And Hansard was typeset in both official languages in side-by-side columns. Sometimes it had to be typeset and printed in a lead-time which was considerably shorter than any of today’s daily newspapers.