McGonagle (William E.) is born in Boston.

The son of Daniel and Jeannette (Geary) McGonagle, William McGonagle grows up on O’Callaghan Way in the Mary Ellen McCormack public housing development, graduates from South Boston High School, and goes to work as a groundskeeper for the Boston Housing Authority, leaves briefly to become a youth worker, then returns and remains with the agency for the next 40 years. He marries Ellen Regan in 1972, and after rising through the ranks, is named BHA administrator in 2009. McGonagle retires in July 2019, shortly after is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and dies in Boston on October 9, 2019.