Terrence W. Maguire, 86

    Terrence W. Maguire, an avid reader, amateur
artist and unstoppable storyteller who spent 39 years
with a Baltimore engineering firm and worked on
projects ranging from the construction of Titan
missile silos in Arkansas to the building of the
second Bay Bridge, died Friday morning of cancer at
his home on Homeland Southway. He was 86.
    Mr. Maguire was born in Bethlehem, Pa., and grew
up in Baltimore, where he was educated at Loyola High
School and Loyola College. As a young man he developed
a taste for bow ties, a chauffeur-like skill in
driving and an easy, if idiosyncratic, two-step that
he later found adaptable to almost any kind of dance
music. After he received his degree in 1938 his
father, an industrial salesman, put him on a train to
Gadsden, Ala., where a job was waiting for him in the
chemistry lab of Republic Steel Co.
    He found the routine of metallurgical analysis to
be monotonous, however, and soon transferred to the
blast furnace, where he worked as a laborer, larry car
operator, stove tender and stock house foreman. While
in Gadsden, he met the love of his life, his wife of
56 years, Mary Burke.
    In 1941 he was drafted into the Army and was
attending Officer Candidate School when Pearl Harbor
was attacked. He served in the 2nd Armored Division,
17th Armored Engineer Battalion, and his tour of duty,
including 34 months overseas, took him from ?[Fort]
Benning to Berlin.? He participated in the military
campaigns of North Africa, Sicily, Normandy, Northern
France, Rhineland, Ardennes and Central Europe. He
rose to the rank of captain and commanded a
headquarters company before leaving the Army in 1946.
    The war provided him with a store of stories that
he enjoyed retelling for many years. His anecdotes
reflected his awareness of his own good fortune, his
wry sense of irony and his sympathy for those who were
overlooked or unloved.
    These tales, told with laconic grace, typically
turned on some act of impish rebellion that led
eventually to the righting of an injustice, or at
least quiet vindication. More than one ended with a
happy surprise, such as the time a French-speaking
soldier in his command liberated a cellar of Calvados
brandy that had survived the German occupation of
France.
    His repertoire went well beyond his experience in
the military and included such remembrances as the
rum-smuggling banana boats that docked on Pratt Street
during Prohibition, a pipe-smoking grandmother who was
part American Indian and the joy he derived from a
ordering a plate of olives for lunch while dining as a
boy at Marconi?s.
    After the war he returned to Alabama, where he
married Miss Burke and was employed for a time in his
father-in-law?s construction business. He then moved
back to Baltimore, where he took a job with the J.E.
Greiner Co., now URS. During his years with Greiner,
he worked on the New Jersey Turnpike and the expansion
of BWI Airport and performed extensive right-of-way
research for road projects in Ohio and West Virginia.
As office engineer for the second Bay Bridge, he spent
countless hours climbing the span?s pilings and
overhead suspension system as they were taking shape
and compiled an extensive photographic record of the
project?s progress.
    Although he retired in 1989, he kept a hardhat
handy and never lost his enthusiasm for inspecting
construction sites as a sidewalk supervisor. His most
recent project was photographing the rehabilitation of
the Faurier Library at Notre Dame College.
    Over the years he pursued a variety of artistic
interests, including painting and poetry. He was a
charter member of the Renaissance Institute, an
enrichment program for senior citizens at Notre Dame.
    A devout Catholic, Mr. Maguire was an early lay
participant in the reforms brought about by Vatican II
and served as a lector and an extraordinary minister
of Communion. He was a member of the Holy Name Society
and the Knights of Columbus. At the time of his death,
he was a member of the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen
Parish.
    In addition to his wife, he is survived by three
daughters, Brigid Krizek of Rockville, Margaret
Maguire of Arlington, Va., and Rosemary Thompson, of
Baltimore; two sons, Michael Maguire of Baltimore and
Miles Maguire of Oshkosh, Wis.; two brothers, David
Maguire of Wilmington, Del., and William Maguire of
Merion Station, Pa.; two sisters, Margaret Corbitt of
Parkersburg, W. Va., and Martha Roest of St. Peter,
Minn.; and nine granddaughters. Two brothers, Robert
and James, pre-deceased him.
    He will be buried from St. Mary?s Govans.
Visitation will be at Mitchell-Wiedefield funeral home