Meet Your Neighbor
Eileen McGrath
BY MARY LANCASTER INDEPENDENT WRITER
Once Ed the cat decided whether he wanted to stay in or go out, Eileen McGrath was able to sit down at her dining room table in the snug house where she was raised and talk about her life. An island native born at the original Nantucket Cottage Hospital on West Chester Street, McGrath graduated from Nantucket High School with the class of 1941. There are about six of them left here now, and they stay in touch constantly and meet for lunch at least a couple of times during the year.

But what stands out in her memory are the rides to school in those days. The kids in her Hummock Pond Road area were picked up by what she termed a limousine-style car from the Wood Taxi company. McGrath preferred to catch the "ride up" to collect Phil Bartlett as the last student on the route because the trip was so pleasant.

McGrath left the island for Radcliffe College in Cambridge in pursuit of a biology degree. After graduation, she went on to teach the subject at the Lincoln School in Providence, R.I. from 1947 until she retired in 1985. During college summers, McGrath returned to the island and held a number of jobs, including selling tickets at the Steamship Authority terminal working under Norman Giffin and with Catherine Mayo and Jeanne Dooley. The trickiest part of that work involved selling tickets for "The Neptune," a sleeper train that ran from Woods Hole to Washington, D.C., because the train company did not tolerate mixups in ticket numbers that prevented it from knowing if passengers had stolen or improperly used their fares.

McGrath also worked a 1948 summer in the town building, was the summer librarian at the Maria Mitchell Association and taught nature classes during the 1950s. From 1966 to 1983 she ran the summer Maria Mitchell Natural Science Department and hosted bird and nature walks.

"It was a lot of fun," she said.

When McGrath retired from teaching she moved back to her homestead on a permanent basis and was almost immediately employed by the Nantucket Atheneum, where she has worked ever since. Her first job there was to replace returned books to their appropriate shelf locations. Today, she works two days a week at the library managing the bookmobile program whereby books are delivered to those who cannot physically visit the library, and gathering shipments of volumes requested from Nantucket's library from other mainland libraries in the exchange program called Cape Libraries Automated Materials System (CLAMS).

In her spare time, McGrath enjoys reading - she subscribes to five opinion periodicals - watching videos on her soon-to-be-vintage VCR and spending time with her family. Those still here include her brother, Bob McGrath Sr., her nephews, Bob Jr. and Tom McGrath, and niece Christine Iler. Another niece, Allison McGrath Borden, lives in New Mexico. Though she would enjoy visiting Ireland again for the fifth time, where her grandparents originated, she is resigned to being on Nantucket for the foreseeable future and has no complaints about that.

McGrath remains very involved with the community, and her commitments include being treasurer of the Nantucket Town Association that meets monthly; secretary of the Coffin School Trustees who meet quarterly; a member of the Nantucket Land Council Board of Directors who meet monthly; a member of the Nantucket Civic League; and a board member of the Community Foundation for Nantucket which meets monthly.

"I'm content here," she said of her life today. "I'm busy. I enjoy it a lot. I enjoy meeting new people all

the time." I