Who Was Mac?


J. Warren McClure was born in Clairton, Pennsylvania in 1919, the youngest of three children. His mother passed when he was about two years old and his father, a bank worker and bank examiner, moved the family to Athens, Ohio, where Mac and his two older sisters could attend public schools and Ohio University in town.

Lois shared more about Mac’s youth: 

“He was a ‘man with a plan’ which started in his youth in Athens, Ohio, where he found many ways as a youngster, and later as a high school and college student, to find money-making opportunities... He headed a small group (“McClure Electro-Art Decorating”) that did sound and lighting for college and other local events.

"He had decided on a career as a commercial artist, but his family, fearing a life in Greenwich Village, persuaded him to go to Ohio University in Athens. A college professor urged him to channel his art into a master’s degree in business at Northwestern University in Chicago. He was on a work-study program, working at Armour & Company days and in college at night.

"The ‘man with the plan’ had been diverted by the war, but as he approached his 30s he wanted to reach out and get a business of his own.”As he completed his academics, World War II was looming. On Navy Day 1941, he enlisted in the Navy. He stayed in his home state of Ohio until applying for officer training and then specializing as a bomb disposal officer, definitely considered hazardous duty. He served in that capacity on a ship in the Pacific the last year of the war. Then it was back to Chicago for Mac for a job with a radio marketing magazine, and on to Grand Forks, ND, where he served as advertising and business manager of the local newspaper and a radio station."