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11/25/2016 - Staten Island, NY, USA

(Portugalete, Bizkaia 02-21-1925 - Staten Island, NY 11-25-2016)

Joseph Murguia, 91, of Dongan Hills, passed away peacefully on Nov. 25, 2016, at his home, after a lengthy illness. 

Joseph was born on Feb. 21, 1925, in Portugalete, a port town west of Bilbao in the Basque region of northern Spain. After earning an engineering degree, he served as a nautical engineer for the Transatlantic Shipping Company based in Spain. In 1949, he immigrated to the United States, settled in Brooklyn, and was employed as a machinist at a tool-and-die company. In 1956, he married the love of his life, Maria Delia Egusquiza, of Busturia, Spain. The couple moved to Staten Island in 1963. 

Joseph continued his career at the New York City Transit Authority, where he worked for 31 years, retiring as a supervisor at the Transit Authority's Sheepshead Bay facility. While employed at the MTA, he attended the evening program at the City College of New York, earning a degree in English as a Second Language.

Joseph is remembered as a confident, cheerful man who truly enjoyed life. He loved to travel and regularly visited Spain with his wife. He enjoyed reading, dining out and attending the theater, gardening, and listening to music. He frequently visited his son, James, in New Hampshire, often taking long walks in the New England countryside. He was a quintessential Mr. Fix-it who took pride in a variety of home improvement projects. He also loved singing and dancing to Spanish folk songs. He was a parishioner at St. Sylvester Church in Concord. 

Surviving, along with Delia, his wife of 60 years, are his son, James, daughter-in-law, Tina, and granddaughters, Amaya and Elena.

Funeral Mass is today, Monday, at 10 a.m., at St. Sylvester's. Entombment is in Resurrection Cemetery. 

(Published in Staten Island Advance on Nov. 28, 2016)