James Richard MacMahon OBITUARY James Richard MacMahon (Jim) died peacefully at home on July 24, 2024, just shy of his 94th birthday, from congestive heart failure. He was born to Gladys and Benjamin MacMahon in 1930 in Newton, Massachusetts during the Great Depression. His parents had moved from New York City to Newton after the stock market crash to change careers (Ben had been an actor and Gladys a journalist) and raise a family.
When Jim was ten years old, they moved to Miami where he grew up having fun tubing down the Miami River, sailing the coastal waters, hunting snakes with the Seminoles in the Everglades, learning photography and playing saxophone. In high school he had a jazz band that played around Miami and all the musicians and instruments, including a string bass, fit into his two-toned green Cadillac once owned by J.C.
Penny. After high school he enlisted in the Navy and served as an Electronics Technician during the Korean War, serving time on destroyers in the Pacific and Atlantic. He continued to play the sax in a Navy band, practicing on board in a closet, and formed a Navy jazz band in San Francisco.
Upon leaving the Navy, Jim took advantage of the G.I. Bill to attend college at the University of Chicago.
There he met the love of his life, Alice, a nursing student from Iowa, and they married in 1955. Daughter Darcie was born while they were still in Chicago. A job for Martin Marietta in presentations brought Jim back to Florida in 1958, and Orlando and la.