CHICAGO (CBS) — Bonnie McGrath, a Chicago journalist, attorney and advocate for the city’s arts, culture and people, died last week.
McGrath, a longtime resident of the South Loop, died on Sunday, December 22. She would have turned 74 on December 25.
Bonnie McGrath
Chicago native Benita Carol McGrath, nee Taman, wrote extensively about growing up in Chicago in her columns and blog posts. Born on December 25, 1950 to Cecelia and Lew Taman, McGrath grew up in the Hyde Park and Uptown neighborhoods of Chicago.
In her blog “Mom, I Think I’m Poignant,” McGrath sometimes wrote about childhood memories of visiting Chicago’s Riverview amusement park and attending the 1964 New York World’s Fair with her father, and riding a clipper from Milwaukee at night travel to the other side. 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.
McGrath worked in the City News Bureau’s telephone service and worked out of the newsroom of the old Chicago Police Headquarters at 1121 S. State St. with the late and legendary bureau chief Paul Zimbrakos at the editorial office in the Loop.
McGrath had a long and successful career in journalism. She regularly wrote freelance stories for the Chicago Reader for decades and also wrote a regular column for the Chicago Tribune for a time.
McGrath specialized mainly in personal essays that made the reader feel like a fly on the wall during her adventures in the city. She also wrote about what was then a relatively unconventional experience of raising a family in a downtown high-rise in the 1980s while living with her second husband in the Loop. Paul McGrath– a fellow journalist and former vice mayor of Chicago – 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 the connection with a woman who had a daughter the same age as Molly led to to an inseparable friendship that could have led to the plot of a heart-warming movie:
“Jami, Jessi, and Molly and I started swimming together in our rooftop pool every afternoon during kids’ hours. The girls would come visit in some apartment afterward. Then one day I had an idea: Let’s open our doors after we swim late afternoon.afternoon and let the girls go back and forth freely, leave the TV on, snacks outside, bikes and playhouses in the hall.
“At first we used the time wisely – cleaning out our purses, sorting laundry, starting dinner parties and arguing on the phone with Marshall Field & Co. salespeople. But what ultimately happened over the next two years was the creation of two dynamic duos – from the same mold that created Lucy and Ethel, Laverne and Shirley, Rhoda and Mary, Trixie and Alice, and Kate and Allie and Jami, and of course Molly and Jessi The thirtysomethings had all become best friends.”
McGrath has won dozens of major journalism awards. She also wrote for the Chicago Journal, taught journalism at Columbia College Chicago and worked for a time in public relations.
In 1991, McGrath returned to school to pursue a law degree at John Marshall Law School. She went on to practice law as a prosecutor for the city of Chicago, noting that she worked in every department of the Cook County courthouse and later worked on hundreds of cases as a general practitioner. Although ultimately unsuccessful in her bids, McGrath also ran for Cook County judge several times.
In recent years, McGrath focused her writing on her blog “Mom, I Think I’m Poignant,” first on the Chicago Now platform, later as a newsletter on Substack. She wrote about whatever was on her mind: Chicago and national politics, life in the South Loop, memories of Gloria Steinem visiting her home decades earlier, or paying respects to the late Mayor Harold Washington as his body lay in state at City Hall .
McGrath also regularly posted on social media about her visits to the city’s arts and cultural institutions — from the Art Institute of Chicago and the Symphony Center to a variety of smaller galleries and venues.
McGrath was especially proud of her daughter Molly’s work with the Project Onward arts program for people with mental and developmental disabilities.
Last Friday, Project Onward honored McGrath with a statement that read in part: “Her sharp mind, compassionate spirit and infectious enthusiasm inspired us all. In addition to her contributions as a board member, Bonnie was a friend to many – always ready with a kind word, a listening ear or a genuine smile. She was extremely curious, especially when it came to politics, and had 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 Altman. A private service was held.
