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John Abram Magee Sr. of Lake Jackson went to be with the Lord
on September 30, 2009. He was born on August 14, 1924, in
Glen Flora, Texas, to Don and Ella Wheeler Magee. He grew up
in Orange County, Texas, enjoying the outdoors, especially riding horses.
If you ever have sung a note and enjoyed music, you know John Magee Sr.
A devoted husband, loving father, grandfather and great-grandfather, his love for music was evident in his life as he has shared it with all of his students for many years. No matter if you were in one of his many public school, church or community choirs, he always left you with a great appreciation for music, but more importantly he modeled God’s love and compassion to all.
When he was 2, he was stricken with polio, which kept him out of the armed forces and WWII. As a worker in the Consolidated Steel Shipyard in Orange, Texas, he did his part helping build battleships for American troops. In the shipyards, his talent as a trombone player won his spot with the shipyard band. The company wanted them to play at lunchtime to keep up worker morale, so they always scheduled him for the day shift.
In 1944, he married the love of his life, Agnes Davis. When the war ended, the Magees moved to Huntsville and attended Sam Houston State Teacher’s College. He studied music under Dr. Euell Porter, where he discovered his love for choral music. Later he earned a Master’s Degree in Music Education. He came to Freeport in 1947 and taught choral music in Brazosport Indepen-dent School District for 37 years. He taught countless students to sing, harmonize and love the expressions of a cappella music.
John and Agnes loved Colorado. After his retirement in 1983, they built their mountain home, which they named Seven Spruces. During his retirement, he continued to be active in music organizations, including the Peak to Peak Chorale in Colorado and the Brazos Area Boy Choir in the Brazosport area. In the past, he has served as vice president of the Brazosport Fine Arts Council and president of the Brazosport Community Concert Association. He also was a vice president of the Texas Choral Directors Association.
Behind every great “music man” there’s a great lady. He is survived by Agnes Magee, his wife of 65 years; his daughter, Donna Magee Lunsford; and son, John Abram Magee and daughter-in-law, Kathy Engelhardt Magee. The Magees have seven grandchildren, Julie Lunsford Gareis and her husband, Scott, Mark Davis Lunsford and his wife, Ashley, Amy Lunsford Seeber and her husband, Kevin, Brent Thomas Lunsford and his wife, Courtney, Margaret Magee Doiron and her husband, Josh, Elizabeth Magee and Rachel Magee.
Their great-grandchildren are Isabel and Caroline Lunsford, Cass and Mason Seeber, Cole and Chloe Lunsford and Abram and Alexis Gareis.
Arrangements are with Lakewood Funeral Chapel in Lake Jackson.
A visitation was held there on Friday evening from 6 to 8 p.m.
The funeral service will be at First Baptist Church in Lake Jackson at 10:30 a.m. Saturday morning.
The family has requested that any memorials be made to the John Magee Choral Scholarship fund, in care of The Community Foundation of Brazoria County, P.O. Box 2392, Angleton, TX 77516-2392.
Online condolences can be made at freeportlakewoodfuneralhomes.com.
Published October 3, 2009
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Carrol Reneau (Jeffers)
Carrol Reneau (Jeffers)
For those who knew and loved John Magee.This was in Sunday's Brazosport Facts (10/4/09).
The day the music died
By Ron Rozelle
Correspondent
Published October 4, 2009
It was in the middle of the school day when I learned, on Wednesday,
that John Magee had passed away. And, even though all of us who
had worked with him, and others on staff who had been his choir students
back in the old days in Brazosport or Brazoswood high schools, had known
he was very ill, it still came as a shock. The world shifted just a little
when I was given the news. More accurately, it was as if something was
suddenly and recognizably absent, like when something important is
swooshed away by a swift wind. All I could think of for a minute or so
was the line from Don McLean’s 1971 hit song “American Pie” where the
date of Buddy Holly’s death is called “the day the music died.”
For a good many of us, some of the music died on Wednesday.
To say that John Magee was a good choir teacher would be like saying
Julia Child was a good cook or Lance Armstrong is a good bicyclist.
He was, by most accounts, the gold standard of choir teachers.
Not that I was ever in one of his classes or his community choirs —
my musical shortcomings would likely have strained our otherwise
good friendship — but I’ve known many people who were, and his
impact on them reached further than a semester or two. It usually
became part of the very fiber of their lives. He was that unique
sort of teacher who made it OK for a hulking linebacker to sing like
a bird. Or for a shy girl with no confidence whatsoever to find the
courage to perform a solo in a recital and go on to sing in church
choirs for the rest of her life. There’s an abundance of personal stories
and testimonials this week, and John is the quiet hero of each one.
He had an almost uncanny ability to nudge folks toward making the
joyful noise that the Bible, his constant compass, says we ought to make.
We were professional colleagues for only the last couple of years of his
long career in the early ’80s but I recognized, early on, the love of teaching
and deep concern for his students that I’d seen in other great educators.
And, beyond that, his deep religious faith, total devotion to his wife Agnes
and their family, and the fact that he was the epitome of a gentleman in
all circumstances won me over completely. Several years after he retired,
my wife Karen, our three young daughters, and I were the guests of John
and Agnes in their handsome cabin on a pretty mountainside high up in
the Rockies in Colorado. He built that place himself, having never constructed
anything more complex than a stage set for a high school musical. We were
treated like royalty on that visit, and John took us fishing up at the timberline
at Lake Brainard, one of the prettiest bodies of water I’ve ever laid eyes on.
I fiddled a little with calligraphy back then, and it was on that trip that
I gave John a framed quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes which says
“Alas for those that never sing, but die with all their music in them.”
We were sitting on his front deck overlooking the majesty of soaring
mountains and blue sky when he held the gift in those distinctive hands
that always looked too big for his slight body. He read the quote over a
couple of times and nodded before telling me he agreed completely.
I had no doubt that he would. He could have written the words himself.
When I said, several paragraphs ago, that I sensed something being
swept away when I learned of John’s death, I was at least partly wrong.
Nobody who had as much impact on as many lives as he had can ever
be truly gone. Because if there was ever a person who didn’t die
with all their music in them, it was him. He made it his life’s work to
share himself and his talent and, by so doing, to bring out the best in
countless people who, while richly blessed to have crossed his path, are sad today.
John Magee’s life was one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard.
Award-winning author Ron Rozelle has written seven books.
He teaches creative writing at Brazoswood High School.
He can be reached at ronrozelle(at)sbcglobal.net.
© 2009 Ron Rozelle