Marguerite Beam McNamara

MCNAMARA, CUNNINGHAM, BEAM, MONAGHAN, BRAZILL

Posted By: Mary Welty Hart (email)
Date: 2/25/2006 at 19:03:09

Winterset Madisonian, Winterset, Iowa
March 19, 1986

MARGUERITE MCNAMARA, Winterset

Funeral services were held Tuesday, March 18, at St. Joseph's Catholic Church for Marguerite Beam McNamara, 90, who died March 14, 1986, at Iowa Methodist Medical Center. Burial was in the Winterset Cemetery.

Mrs. McNamara was born June 19, 1895, at the Crawford township homestead of her grandparents, the late Mr. and Mrs. John Cunnimgham, Madison County pioneers. Mr. Cunningham had settled in Crawford township in 1855. Mrs. McNamara's great uncle, the late Father John F. Brazill, pioneer Des Moines priest, founded many of the Catholic parishes in central Iowa.

Mrs. McNamara was the widow of Ernest J. McNamara and the daughter of the late Thomas Walter and Kathrine Cunningham Beam. She lived in Denver, Co., before her marriage to Mr. McNamara Jan. 21, 1925, and was a graduate of the Wolcott School in Denver.

Since her marriage, Mrs. McNamara had lived in the family home of West Jefferson Street. She was a former president of St. Joseph's Altar Society and was active in many community organizations. She was a long-time secretary at the Winterset Library Board and during World War II, implemented the distribution of ration books in Winterset. She was a Red Cross volunteer during both World War I and World War II. She also was the first Social Chairman of Lakeview Country Club.

Mrs. McNamara was a former member of Fortnightly and Current Topic Clubs in Winterset and of the Abigail Adams Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Des Moines.

She is survived by a son, Michael J. McNamara, of Winterset; a daughter, Katherine Monaghan of Chicago, Il.; two grandaughters, four step-grandaughters and six step-great-grandchildren.

In addition to her husband and parents, she was preceded in death by a brother, John W. Beam, and a sister, Kate Beam.