Bonnie McGrath, journalist and attorney who always championed Chicago, dies at 73
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Bonnie McGrath—a Chicago journalist, attorney, and champion of the city's arts, culture, and people—passed away last week.
McGrath—a longtime resident of the South Loop—died Sunday, Dec. 22. She would have turned 74 on Dec. 25.
A Chicago native, Benita Carol McGrath, née Taman, wrote extensively about growing up in Chicago in her columns and blog posts. Born Dec. 25, 1950, to Cecelia and Lew Taman, McGrath—who always went by Bonnie—grew up in Chicago's Hyde Park and Uptown neighborhoods.
In her blog, "Mom, I Think I'm Poignant," McGrath would sometimes write of childhood memories of visiting Chicago's Riverview amusement park, attending the New York World's Fair of 1964 with her dad, and traveling overnight on a clipper from Milwaukee across Lake Michigan to Muskegon, Michigan.
McGrath graduated from Nicholas Senn High School in the Edgewater neighborhood, and from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with a bachelor's degree in community health education. She went on to earn a master's degree in public health from the University of Missouri, and worked as a telephone installer for Illinois Bell for five years as a young woman in the 1970s.
Launching into a career in the news business, McGrath served a stint at the City News Bureau wire service—working out of the press room at the old Chicago Police Headquarters at 1121 S. State St. with the late and legendary bureau chief Paul Zimbrakos at the editor's desk in the Loop.
McGrath went on to have a long and successful career in journalism. She wrote freelance stories regularly for the Chicago Reader for decades, and also wrote a regular column for the Chicago Tribune for some time.
In particular, McGrath specialized in personal essays that left the reader feeling like a fly on the wall for her adventures around the city. She also wrote back in the 1980s about what was then a relatively unconventional experience of raising a family in a downtown high-rise, while living in the Loop with her second husband, Paul McGrath—a fellow journalist and former deputy Chicago mayor—and their daughter, Molly.
In a column titled "Fast Friends" published in January 1988 for the TempoWoman section of the Tribune, McGrath took readers along as she described how connecting with a woman who had a daughter the same age as Molly led to an inseparable friendship that could have made for the plot of a heartwarming movie:
"Jami and Jessi and Molly and I started to swim together every afternoon during children's hours in our rooftop pool. The girls would visit in one apartment or another afterwards. Then one day I had an idea: Let's open our doors after swimming late in the afternoon and let the girls go back and forth freely, keep the TVs on, snacks out, bikes and playhouses in the hall.
"At first we used the time wisely—to clean our purses, sort laundry, start dinners and argue on the phone with salespeople from Marshall Field & Co. But what ultimately happened over the next two years was the creation of two dynamic duos—from the same mold that produced Lucy and Ethel, Laverne and Shirley, Rhoda and Mary, Trixie and Alice, and Kate and Allie. Bonnie and Jami, and of course, Molly and Jessi. Two toddlers and two women in their 30s had all become best friends."
McGrath won dozens of major journalism awards. She also wrote for the Chicago Journal, taught journalism at Columbia College Chicago, and spent some time working in public relations.
In 1991, McGrath returned to school to pursue a J.D. from the John Marshall Law School. She went on to practice law as a prosecutor for the City of Chicago, and noted that she worked in every division of Cook County court and worked on hundreds of bench trials later as a general practitioner. Though ultimately unsuccessful in her bids, McGrath also ran several times for Cook County judge.
In relatively recent years, McGrath focused her writing on her "Mom, I Think I'm Poignant" blog—first on the Chicago Now platform, later as a newsletter on Substack. She wrote about whatever was on her mind—Chicago and national politics, South Loop living, memories of Gloria Steinem visiting her home decades earlier, or paying respects to the late Mayor Harold Washington as his body lay in state in City Hall.
McGrath also posted frequently on social media about her visits to the city's arts and cultural institutions. These ranged from the Art Institute of Chicago, the Symphony Center, and the Lyric Opera to all manner of smaller galleries, venues, and events—whether a recording session by Third Coast Percussion in Wicker Park or the Sock Monkey Museum in Long Grove.
McGrath was especially proud of her daughter Molly's work with the Project Onward art program for people with mental and developmental disabilities.
This past Friday, Project Onward honored McGrath with a statement that read, in part: "Her sharp mind, compassionate spirit, and infectious enthusiasm inspired us all. Beyond her contributions as a board member, Bonnie was a friend to many—always ready with a kind word, a listening ear, or a heartfelt laugh. She was beyond curious, especially about politics, and was a wealth of knowledge about so many things."
McGrath is survived by her daughter Molly, brother Robert Taman, mother Cecelia Taman, and life partner Bruce Oltman. A private service has been held.
