Patricia McGrath

Joyfully resilient matriarch, world champion giver of the perfect gift, and dancer-by-the-light-of-the-moon Patricia “Pat” McGrath (nee O’Neil), 90, died September 1 in Newtown, PA under the best circumstances any of us could wish for: at peace, free from pain, and surrounded by family she loved more than words could say.

One of the best things to come out of Staten Island in the past century, Pat was born in Staten Island Hospital and grew up in Mariners Harbor and Silver Lake. She graduated from Port Richmond High School in 1952, eventually settling in West Brighton for over 40 years before retiring to Yardley, PA.

She married her first husband, Donald Elwell, while he was stationed with the Army in Anchorage, AK in 1955. They moved from there to Washington where they had their first son and then returned to Staten Island where they added a daughter and second son to their family. When she became a single mother supporting three young children in the early ’60s, she first worked in sales for Union Camp in NYC before pivoting to real estate sales on the Island.

When the Trade Mart mall opened in Prince’s Bay, she was hired as the head manager and proudly worked there 7 days a week. In her final and longest career stint, she became a regional manager for Staffing Alternatives, a New Jersey temp agency where she found her calling finding jobs for people beginning their careers, those in need of a new start, or parents like her who needed more flexibility than average.

By the late ’60s she met the love of her life, Michael McGrath, a man she would call her hero throughout the rest of her days, and who became a father and grandfather to her family not by blood, but by the far truer measure of his heart. Pat and Michael had a thousand adventures great and small, from road trips across the desert to the Cliffs of Moher, but the place they loved most of all was Cape Cod, MA. Over the course of five decades, they would bring their family there every summer, eventually buying a second home in the town of Orleans that would host endless cherished memories with friends, families, and even a wedding. It was a place and a time more magical than anyone could hope for, but making things more magical than anyone could hope for was Pat’s whole stock & trade.

Pat was dedicated to her children, her husband, and her career, but what was beyond measure was her dedication to her grandchildren. A celebrator of holidays great and small, she would wake up before dawn and visit multiple houses to set up Groundhog’s Day breakfasts or Valentine’s Day baskets. She wiped out Mother Moose’s stock of Irish soda bread every St. Patrick’s Day, and laid waste to the stock of Baskin-Robbins ice cream turkeys on Thanksgiving, claiming she needed every last one “because they’re all a little different!” There isn’t enough ink or pixels to list the un-gettable Christmas gifts she defied the odds to secure, because watching her grandchildren scream in shock and happiness was her favorite sight on this earth.

And it would not suffice to tell her story without acknowledging the woman’s singular love of all things quant and whimsical. There was not one craft fair in the Northeast that she missed, and not one handmade Santa Claus antique she wouldn’t scoop up for her collection (which topped 50 by the time the Christmas mantle could hold no more, and she was forced to dial back). The sheer volume of business she single-handedly gave to The Christmas Tree Shops store in Cape Cod is suspected to be the primary reason the company opened a location in Staten Island. Despite hopes for a gold mine of similarly obsessed consumers, it turns out there was indeed only one: Pat McGrath.

Pat joins a joyous reunion with her beloved mother, Margaret “Peggy” O’Neal, dearly close sisters Judy Welsh and Bobbie Van Alstyne, and brilliant nephew Allan Van Alstyne. In addition to her husband, she temporarily leaves behind sons Keith and Kent Elwell, daughter Kim Colbeck, their spouses, two nieces, a nephew, and enough grandchildren and great-grandchildren to successfully overthrow Liechtenstein.

In lieu of flowers, you can honor Pat’s memory by making a donation to the charity of your choice.