Obituary of Isadore Margulies

Isadore (Issy) Margulies, 95, passed away on April 13, 2012 in San Jose, CA from a stroke. He was also suffering from Parkinson's disease. Issy was born in Mott ("The spot that G_d forgot"), North Dakota on March 11, 1917. He was the youngest of the three children of Idel and Yetta Margulies. He skipped the fourth grade and was valedictorian of his high school class of 1934. (Issy was threatened with suspension days before the ceremony because of launching a stink bomb on the school bully from an upper story school window.) Not having money for college, he took the family Model A (which his dad never learned to drive) and drove to Yakima, Washington where he picked cherries and painted houses until enlisting in the Army in February1942. As a tech sergeant with electronics, anti-aircraft, and radar training, he served in New Guinea during World War II and suffered partial deafness and back problems as a result of his gunnery work. His unit shot down many enemy airships while only downing one allied plane. (The pilot ejected safely.) After leaving the service in October 1945, he briefly ran a radio repair shop in Seattle, Washington and later worked for the FAA in Alaska. Deciding it was time to meet a nice Jewish woman, he visited the USO in Denver, Colorado. After dating Marjorie Goodston every day for three weeks, Issy decided they should get married, which they did the following year in 1950. They spent one year in Golva, North Dakota, where Issy maintained a tiny airfield. They moved to Evansville, Indiana where their first son, Daniel, was born in 1952. A second son, Roger, was born in Denver, and the third son, Lyle, arrived in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Issy did everything himself, Including building a small family vacation trailer ("Shorty") on a boat frame. Shorty was used on dozens of trips across the United States from their home in El Paso, Texas during the 1960s. He and his three sons hand-dug a bomb shelter in the back yard of their El Paso home during the Cuban Missile Crisis. With Issy being a civil servant with the Department of the Army, the family spent a year in Alabama and two years in Wiesbaden, Germany. Using his command of Yiddish to communicate with the locals, they traveled around Europe in their big Ford station wagon. The family also lived in Florida, North Carolina, and finally settled in Tucson, Arizona after Issy semi-retired. He continued to work as a television repairman, installing hundreds of antennas on the north side of town and enlisting his sons to haul big console TVs and antennas in the back of yet another Ford station wagon. In the 1980s Issy started jogging (in canvas loafers) and continued until he was 79, with brisk walking for at least another 10 years after that. (He actually ran the Bay to Breakers in those slip-on shoes!) In 1995 Issy and Marjorie moved to northern California to be closer to Roger and Daniel. Issy is survived by his wife Marjorie, sons Daniel (and Pam), Roger (and Ann), and Lyle (and Julie), grandson Yaki Margulies, and step-grandchildren Dana March and Josh Niehaus. He is also survived by nephews Russell and Leslie and niece Saralee. Issy was predeceased by his brother Nathan Margulies, his sister Faye Singer, and nephew Bruce Singer. His favorite Yiddish saying, with which he ended many conversations, was "Zie Gezunt!" ("Be in Good Health!") The burial will take place at Fort Logan Military Cemetery in Denver, Colorado on April 17, 2012.