Sweetie : It's always sad to lose a big tree, but especially when there's a sentimental attachment. I hope you have pictures of it when it was in its glory days.
@Bloom : No, I never took pictures, but I know people would walk by and take pictures of it because it was just blooming so beautiful it would be full of magnolias. And when you walk out the front door, that's all you could smell. But it was so weird that once my DH got sick. It stopped blooming all those magnolias . It Would bloom only one a year