Magner, William Edgar Sr.

Subject

BIRTH 30 Nov 1920
Duluth, St. Louis County, Minnesota, USA

DEATH 9 Jun 1972 (aged 51)
Rapid City, Pennington County, South Dakota, USA

BURIAL
Forest Hill Cemetery
Duluth, St. Louis County, Minnesota, USA

Description

Wiliam Magner Sr was born November 30,1920 in Duluth MN to Ralph Beatty Magner and Janet MacAulay,he was an only child. He attended the University of Minnesota where he was associated with Sigma Alpha Epsilon.He served in the Air Force during WW 11 and went to work at a radio station in Minneapolis after he graduated from the University of Minnesota

He married Norma E Anderson on June 6, 1946 in Sturgis South Dakota. They lived in Flint Michigan for several years where he started the Flint Nut and Bolt Company, and then joined WNEM television, Flint. He came to Rapid City in 1960 and became a radio and television announcer, and then a television sales executive for KOTA in Rapid City.

He had his own radio show the Bill Magner Show, he played big band and Duke Ellington and the Dorsey Brothers.

On the night of the flood Bill and Elizabeth had gone to a cokctail party at a neighbors house leaving Jeff and Merlyn to have their own party. He called to tell they to put the cars in the drive way, thinking they would be safe from what ever high water was coming. He may at the last moment tried to call and warn them of what he could see coming but the electricty went out before he could talk to them.

Merlyn and her brother Jeff attempted to get up on the roof of their house, Jeff got up Merlyn didn't. He was swept off the roof and she was swept out of the house. AT one point she saw her parents on the roof of the house near by and she could tell her mother saw her and probably her brother being swept away, probably just before he was also swept away by the strong current of Rapid Creek in flood.
He was active for many year in the Michigan Boy Scout Council and in Rapid City he was a member of Kiwanis and past deacon of Westminster Presbyterian Church.

Survivers include a son William E Magner II serving in Vietnam with the Air Force. He came back at the time of the flood and was the one who went looking for his parents and brother in the makeshift morgues set up around town using rental trucks to transport the dead to refrigerator trucks, and a daughter Merlyn who in 2011 wrote her story of the flood and its aftermath called ‘Come Into the Water".
and his mother Mrs RB Magner of Duluth MN.

William Magners body was found and identified very early but his wife's body was found a week or so later on the East side of town. Burial of her casket had already taken place and Meryln never knew what happened to her body once it was identified by dental records.

Files

William Edgar Magner Sr.jpg

Collection

Citation

“Magner, William Edgar Sr.,” Flood of 1972, accessed March 29, 2024, https://1972flood.omeka.net/items/show/388.