Figure 1. — Thomas McGrath in Fargo in 1976 or 77, Copyright and Courtesy Plains Distribution Service Inc., photographer BeAnn Vranish.

Figure 2. — Tom (left) and Jimmy McGrath in 1919 or 1920.

Figure 3. — Katie (Catherine Shea) and James McGrath in 1915.

Figure 4. — Katheen, James, and Tom McGrath on the family farm in 1946.

Figure 5. — Thomas McGrath in his Minneapolis apartment in 1986. Courtesy of The Loft Literary Center.

Figure 6. — Tom in New York (circa) 1948. Courtesy Rena Wallant.

Figure 7. — Jimmy and Kathleen in 1940.

Figure 8. — Tom and his father James on the farm in 1946.

Figure 9. — (Left to right) Joe, Jack, and Martin in 1943.

Figure 10. — Tom (left) and Joe in 1946.

Figure 11. — Tom on the McGrath family farm in 1944.

1“Our folks would have felt more comfortable with an ordinary child,” Tom McGrath’s only sister Kathleen said when speaking about her brother Thomas Mathew McGrath’s obvious precociousness. “They just didn’t know quite how to handle him.”

2Sheldon elementary and high school teachers also knew they had an unusually gifted student in their midst and would describe their observations in notes sent home to the McGrath parents. One neighbor—when it was announced in 1939 that Tom was named Rhodes Scholar—congratulated the parents by proclaiming very boisterously, as Martin McGrath described the moment, “I just knew that this young man was going to become President. I just knew it.”

3Thomas Matthew McGrath, the oldest of six children, was born outside of Sheldon, North Dakota, in the town of Fingal on November 20, 1916. Tom’s birth was attended by a midwife. He was baptized at his Aunt Maggie Boyle’s farm, with godparents Matt and Julia Shea present. It was at St. Mary’s church in Seldon that he made his First Communion, and he was also confirmed there. During the summer months, nuns would travel from Fargo to Sheldon to teach the catechism and to prepare youngsters for the sacraments. The bishop, because of the long distance of fifty-five miles would only make the trip to Sheldon from Fargo about every four years to administer First Communion, thus, four of the McGrath children partook of this sacrament at the same time.

4It was in a cluster of Irish farm families, the Sheas, the McGraths, and the Boyles, who homesteaded northeast of Sheldon, North Dakota, in the late 19th century that McGrath was raised. The Boyles and McGraths had connections that went back to Ireland, and a number of Boyles married McGrath daughters.

5The patriarch of the Sheas, the family that Tom’s father would marry into, was Matthew Shea, described in the Sheldon Pioneer, as “A picturesque pioneer of territory days.” He was born in County Kerry, Ireland, in 1852, the son of John Shea and Mary Healy. According to Shea’s March 27, 1933, obituary, he settled in the frontier town of Fargo, where he operated a water wagon, selling artesian water to Fargo residents. Around 1870, Shea filed on a homestead, land that is now downtown Fargo. But farm land northeast of Sheldon was more desirable than the low, wet land he had acquired, so Mr. Shea eventually homesteaded in Highland township in 1872. Mr. Shea, as described in the Pioneer, was “an extensive landowner in the area.”

6Today, the Matthew Shea place, as it was known, including portions of Matt Shea’s acreage—and Tom’s father’s farmland—is owned and operated by Steven Fleischfresser and Kathie (Shea) Fleischfresser, the adopted daughter of Mary and Gerald Shea, Tom’s first cousin. The Shea farmstead speaks to the success of the Irish-American pioneer farmer. The exterior of the stately prairie dwelling is complete with scrolled cornices. The outstanding practical features of the home served a large farm family with ease. These include two staircases to the upper story, one for the family and the other for hired help, especially the threshing crew that would be necessary to harvest the crops. Another fine feature is the built-in china closet in the dining room, the doors of which open into the kitchen, as well, so that dishes that were ready for storage could be put up through the kitchen and taken out through the dining room. Even the drawers for silver and utensils opened into both rooms.

7McGrath’s paternal grandfather, Thomas McGrath, emigrated from County Kerry, Ireland, to Canada, and then to Dilworth, Minnesota, before homesteading at Fort Ransom, North Dakota. He married Roseann Lange, and thirteen children were born to the farm couple. Thomas was killed (June 1, 1913) in what Martin McGrath described as a “run away involving a pair of half-broken long-tails.” The locals remarked sometime after the accident and with humor that Thomas might not have died “if he had stuck to oxen instead of opting for modern technology.” Roseann settled in the Turtle Mountains in north central North Dakota after her husband’s death. James, one of the thirteen children left fatherless, lived and farmed with his older brothers near Fessenden, North Dakota, until he received a letter from his sister Maggie McGrath Boyle requesting that he return to help her farm a substantial operation after the death of her own husband. James felt obligated, according to Martin, and gave up the dream of owning his own farm until years later. He farmed for Aunt Maggie in the summers and worked as a logger in the north woods of Minnesota in the winters until 1915.

*

8The following abridged version of Sheldon history from two local newspapers, the Sheldon Enterprise and the Sheldon Progress published between 1888 and 1930, gives the reader an idea of how the community and environs appeared when Matthew Shea and Thomas McGrath, Tom’s grandfathers, settled in the area. Many of these recollections were written by C.J. Greenleaf and W.G. McMannis. The language is as it appears, as is the punctuation, except for ellipsis. The selection is purposely lengthy to give the reader a true sense of the geography and spirit of the locale of McGrath’s childhood:

The history of Sheldon, the banner town of Ransom county, dates from June 22, 1881, when B.D. Wilcox purchased the present town site from the Fargo & Southwestern railroad which was then being built. But having no money with which to pay for it, he sold it three weeks later to E.E. Sheldon for $3,800. Mr. Sheldon platted the village and sold off a few lots. From the beginning, Sheldon enjoyed a steady and prosperous growth.
It is situated midway between the Sheyenne and Maple rivers, two pretty little streams whose banks are lined with beautiful groves. . . . To the church goers Sheldon offers the choice of three denominations, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Catholic. All three are in prosperous condition and look after the spiritual welfare of the community in an able manner. The Catholic Community of Sheldon established the first church in this area. It was organized in 1878 or 1879. Irish, German, and French in origin, Sheldon’s early church history records such names as Marion, Grange, Adam Goodman, Ed and Patrick Pierce. . . Matthew Shea [Tom McGrath’s maternal grandfather]. . . and Cornelieus Boyle [Tom McGrath’s aunt Maggie McGrath’s husband]. . . The civic pride of Sheldon citizens is evidenced by the well keep lawns and streets. The nationality of the citizens is mixed, but taking them altogether, there is not a pleasanter or more agreeable class of people gathered together in any one place on God’s green footstool. There are several Canadians, a few who come from good old German stock, a sprinkling of Scandinavians, Irishmen, and Englishmen. It cannot be said that any one nationality predominate, but nearly all are represented.
No effort has made to boom the place, but many settlers have been attracted by the beautiful farming country, and the wheat production reached the respectable figure of 100,000 bushels [in 1888] of the season’s yield. Three great elevators look skyward while another is rapidly approaching completion. . . . The territory contiguous to Sheldon is occupied by prosperous farmers who have shared in and helped the prosperity of the village. The soil is a black loam mixed with sand, with a clay subsoil and is particularly adapted to diversified farming, which in recent years had been practiced to a large extent with excellent results.
Practically every business is represented in Sheldon. . . three good general stores, two banks, a livery stable, two hardware stores, an opera house, confectionary store, two restaurants, a barber shop, grocery store, two attorneys, a drug store, harness shop, pool hall, blacksmith, a doctor, and one hotel. Sheldon’s artesian well is one of the results of the prosperity and progressiveness of the village.
The passing of days brings the rattle of the busy harvester now one of the most complete machines invented by human ingenuity, and the hum of the omnivorous thresher, while the steady stream of golden grain is pouring into the waiting wagons, to be conveyed to the elevator or granary. While wheat is King. . . yet other products are receiving earnest attention. Stock is rapidly assuming a strong second place in the consideration of the thoughtful farmer, and as a rule he wants the best attainable. As feed for the stock, the ‘meadows’ as the low places are called, are quickly cut with the mowing machine.
Most settlers complain that Dakota houses are so rank and crude. That the houses are unpainted, there are no flowers, no trees, nothing of the beauty of the loved eastern village, and indeed the complaint is generally well-founded, but this cannot be said of Sheldon. Nearly every dwelling bears the evidence of taste and comfort, while several of the pleasant homes would compare to those in large cities. . . . The school house sits back on the prairie behind the town buildings and all the social life of the community is centered at the school. . . . a literary society has been conducted for some time and sponsors several entertainments.

9The homesteading McGrath and Shea families were an active part of this pioneer society. This applied, as well, to the next generation of Sheas and McGraths, Tom’s parents.

10Tom’s mother Catherine (Katie) Shea, was born in the town of Sheldon June 1, 1885, to Matthew (Matt) and Catherine (Scannell) Shea. Martin McGrath describes Katie as “a pretty girl who had a 22 inch waist.” Kathleen portrays her mother as, “probably the sweetest woman in the world.” She adds: “She had great, great faith. She was a calm, wonderful person who never said anything bad about anyone. She took everything in stride and never questioned things.” Tom’s father, James McGrath, was born in Canada on December 18, 1881. Both Kathleen and Martin speak of their father as a hard worker who was the storyteller—the entertainment in the family— even though, as Kathleen recollects, he was somewhat “soft-spoken.” “I never remember him with dark hair,” she says. “He was always gray, as though his hard work logging in Minnesota and years of farming had made him somewhat of an old man at a young age.” In addition, she says, “Our parents did not have much education, but they had a warm, welcoming manner; we were a deep feeling, close family.” Ardis Shea, wife of Tom’s first cousin, James (J. Warren) Shea, tells of James McGrath’s extraordinary ability to listen. “When you were talking to him, you had his full attention. He was just the best listener I have ever met. He made you feel that what you were saying was very important and this, in turn, made the speaker feel important, too.”

11The McGraths were married at St. Mary’s church in Sheldon in 1915. The arrival of James, Joseph, Kathleen, Martin, and Jack, respectively, followed Tom’s birth in 1916.

*

12North Dakota farming in the early part of the 20th century was labor intensive and required the participation of all family members. Early each morning, the McGrath children would bring in enough water and wood for their mother to do the cooking, laundry, and other household chores. One of the ways the McGrath parents accommodated Tom’s predilection for things intellectual, especially for literature, was to dismiss him from not all, but some of the farm chores so that he could sit at the kitchen table and read by lamplight, as both Martin and Kathleen recall.

13The young McGrath shared the knowledge and notions he encountered in his reading with his siblings and cousins. He was teeming with ideas, as family members recollect, and he was always looking for an audience to share these alternative worlds with. One of the subjects that fascinated McGrath was his own Catholic church. He read widely in history and found that not everything about the church was as upstanding as he had been taught. From indulgences, to the misdeeds of Popes, McGrath began speaking about such things. Cousin Roger Shea remembers Tom as one who liked to stir things up by presenting contrary views. Roger’s father, Matthew Shea, disliked this kind of talk and vowed to not let McGrath speak against the faith in front of his children. A cuss word that McGrath was fond of, “God-damnerdung,” was off limits at Uncle Matthew’s house. McGrath’s pursuit of truth began at an early age to the chagrin of some of the adults in his extended family, but his own parents were proud of their son’s capacity to absorb knowledge and to speak profoundly on many subjects.

*

14So important was the Catholic Church to the McGrath parents, especially Katie, that incredibly, even in sub-zero temperatures, the family regularly attended mass at St. Mary’s in Sheldon, a twenty mile round-trip trek. Early means of transportation was a sled. The McGrath children were covered with blankets and animal furs. “Usually it was so cold in the winter that we had our heads and everything covered,” Kathleen explains: “Farm life was really rough; we had a pot belly stove to heat the house. We got our wood from the east grove. We had working horses and milking cows. We milked and sold cream. Mother made butter, too. She packed it in crocks and sold it to others in the area and to stores. We also sold eggs. During the Depression, everyone was poor. There was no getting away from that.” The McGrath farm house was situated on a hill, just east of a meandering coulee, located about a half mile west and across the road from the Matthew Shea place. The only remaining out buildings were burned to the ground in 2003. What remains is the grove of trees to the east that furnished fire wood for the McGrath family.

15Education in rural North Dakota for the McGrath children started with a mile and a half walk each way in clement weather, and rides in a sleigh in the dead of winter. Tom’s cousin, James (J. Warren) Shea, describes the local school, Highland #69 in You Can Get There from Here, as one “attended by Irish children only, most of the time.” “The teacher,” he writes, “was always a husky local girl who had been sent to normal school so that she could come back and teach in her home district. . . . Teachers recruited from outside the area left in a river of tears in less than two weeks. Problems between students were settled by fistfights and most students welcomed a difference of opinion because it was an occasion to fight. . . . The school’s only claim to fame was that a graduate had qualified as a Rhodes scholar.” This student, of course, was Thomas Matthew McGrath. Even in the country school that Tom attended, he devoured all of the books in the grade school library, which wasn’t many, Kathleen recalls. James Shea also describes the shortage of books in the library and the benefit from books being sent to rural areas from the North Dakota State Library. As he tells it, every month, an “all- weather box of books” would arrive at the school, holding about twenty-five to thirty selections. The children looked forward with great anticipation. “King Arthur tales were favorites among the Irish boys. . . . They liked stories that involved magic, horses, and especially fighting.” Extracurricular reading for the Shea and McGrath children also came in the form of pulp fiction magazines, mostly Westerns, that hired help would leave in bunk houses.

16A humorous anecdote from Kathleen McGrath describes an incident involving Tom as a high school student. “He drove the Model T to take us to school in Sheldon, and on one particular day, a package had arrived at the local post office. Dad had mail ordered a new 22 rifle for the boys, and it had arrived.” So excited about their new gun, Tom drove his brothers home to show their father. In a fit of haste, they had left Kathleen at school. When they arrived at home, Katie asked about Sis’s (Kathleen’s) whereabouts, and it became known that the boys had forgotten her at the school house. The new rifle was a prized possession, and McGrath and his brothers were all “good shots.” Hunting was a routine activity in rural Dakota, and a valuable one, especially during difficult economic times. Regarding Tom’s overall manner with his siblings, Kathleen portrays him as a responsible, loving, and caring older brother.

17McGrath graduated from Sheldon High School in 1934. He was driven toward university studies by his intellectual curiosity and by his father who recognized his great gifts, and who, according to Martin, “wanted something more for Tom than the tough life of farming.” He first attended what is now Minnesota State University—Moorhead, Minnesota, and from 1935 to 1939 he attended the University of North Dakota where, for a time, he lived in a dorm that was a converted railroad box car. He was awarded the Bachelor of Arts degree in English with a minor in French in June of 1939. He was registered as “Tommy” McGrath.

18Kathleen describes his visits back to the Sheldon farm: “He would bring his laundry home, and mother and I would do the washing and ironing and send his clothes back to him through the US mail.” When he graduated from UND a fellow student wrote in his yearbook: “To the only genius from McNey Hall.” “I don’t know how he ever made it,” Kathleen says of Tom’s college years. “There was just no money.”

19McGrath was named a Rhodes Scholar in 1939, but World War II forced him to postpone his studies. In a 1978 interview with Frederick Sterns in The Revolutionary Poet in the United States; The Poetry of Thomas McGrath, McGrath states that he had scholarships and fellowships from “all over hell’s half acre,” including Harvard, the University of Iowa, and the University of Minnesota. A potential roadblock became a boon to McGrath when he was offered and accepted a fellowship for graduate studies at Louisiana State University in 1939 where his teacher and advisor was Cleanth Brooks. McGrath and Brooks developed a close friendship, and it was to Brooks that Tom dedicated his Master’s thesis, Creation of a Myth by Five Leftist Writers. The year before McGrath arrived in Baton Rouge, Robert Penn Warren and Cleanth Brooks had published their collaborative work, Understanding Poetry. They had been editing the influential Southern Review since 1935, and their reputations as distinguished Southern writers, intellectuals, and academics, brought enormous attention to the Lousiana State University English department. Both Warren and Brooks, like McGrath, were Rhodes Scholars, but unlike McGrath, each had attended Oxford. The Southern experience, especially the contact with Brooks, influenced McGrath’s ongoing study of literary criticism. Literary criticism, as McGrath pointed out in a 1960’s resume, became a subject that he considered for himself an area of specialization.

20McGrath’s first book of poetry, First Manifesto, a chapbook, was published in Baton Rouge in 1940 by Alan Swallow, a fellow graduate student who would become McGrath’s friend and publisher. Designated as “Swallow Pamphlet no. 1,” a copy can be found, along with other McGrath memorabilia, in the Robert Penn Warren collection at Louisiana State University. Tom sent a copy of First Manifesto to his parents who were pleased to see his poetry in print. Katie McGrath was so proud of the book that she showed it to her St. Mary’s Parish priest. The priest proceeded to cross out lines and to mark passages that were contradictory to church teaching. When Mrs. McGrath arrived home in tears, Tom’s brother Jimmy threatened to confront the priest for making his mother upset and for demeaning Tom. Mrs. McGrath insisted that Jimmy, who was ready to go fisticuffs with the Father, not interfere.

*

21After graduating with a Master of Arts in English June 14, 1940, McGrath married Marian Points, a Crosby, North Dakota, native whom he met at the University of North Dakota. Martin McGrath describes Marian as a “wonderfully kind, pleasant person who loved to dance.” According to Kathleen, “Our parents loved Marian like she was one of their own.”

22The couple moved to Colby, Maine, in 1940 where Tom took his first teaching appointment as Instructor of English at Colby College. “I didn’t like teaching at all,” McGrath confessed in the aforementioned Frederick Sterns interview, “or didn’t think I did, though it turns out some of it I did like. But I didn’t think I was going to stay at it.” Leaving Maine in 1941, the McGraths moved to New York City.

23A lively description of this period in McGrath’s life is provided by Joe Doyle in “Longshot O’Leary: Tom McGrath’s Years on the New York Waterfront,” from the North Dakota Quarterly, Fall 1982. In 1942, according to FBI records, Tom worked as a welder in the Kearny Shipyards in New Jersey and was a member of the Kearny Shipyard Branch of the Communist Party, Hudson County, New Jersey. Marian McGrath was also a member of the Communist Party as early as 1941, according to the same FBI records. Joe Doyle points out, that prior to his Kearney days, McGrath worked on a small broadsheet called the “Shamrock,” published by a group of Irish American Chelsea radicals, and edited a teamster paper. McGrath spoke often and fondly of his days on the New York waterfront, and the characters he met there are immortalized in his Longshot O’Leary’s Garland of Practical Poesie.

*

24On August 5, 1942, Tom enlisted in the United States armed forces. He received basic training at Chanute Field, Illinois, and served in the Aleutian Islands. FBI records indicate that he received a Good Conduct Medal, American Theatre Service Ribbon, Meritorious Unit Award, and Asiatic Pacific Theatre Medal. While Tom was stationed in the Aleutians, a Fargo Forum article dated September 1943 reported: “4 McGraths of Sheldon Serve.” According to the news story, Tom’s brother Private Joseph McGrath fought as a paratrooper who participated in the Normandy invasion, as well as the Southern France invasions. Kathleen graduated from Mercy Hospital nurses training in Valley City, North Dakota, and enlisted in the US Navy Nurse Corps in May of 1943. Kathleen describes the situation thus: “I enlisted,” she said, “because the Navy gave you the choice of duty either overseas or stateside. My brothers had no choice, and I thought it would be easier for my parents if I were in the States.” James, the Forum article outlines, had received training to be a gunner at Lowery Field, Colorado. According to Kathleen, “On May 31, 1945, Jim was on a routine training flight to Portland. On the flight back to Idaho the next morning, the bomber that carried Jim and several other army soldiers crashed near Weiser, Idaho. I was at work at the US Naval Hospital in Farragut, Idaho, and I had heard of a plane crash. I didn’t even know that Jim had been flying, but I couldn’t get if off my mind. The next day I received notification. Six were killed and Jimmy was among them.”

25Kathleen flew back to North Dakota to be with her parents. “I walked into the bedroom and my mother looked at me and said, ‘You shouldn’t have flown.’” Kathleen further recollects: “Tom and Marian arrived from New York, and Tom went with Dad to Enderlin when Jim’s body was shipped home. Tom was as bad as mother. They were in even worse shape than the rest of us. Mother didn’t want to see Jimmy. She didn’t want an open casket. Mother just couldn’t go on for the longest time after Jimmy died.” As Martin recalled the events: “I remember my parents. These two guys from the Air Force came around. You know they always send two. Jimmy was a tail gunner. They were training to go overseas. It was just devastating. Tom probably knew Jimmy more than the rest of us did. I was in the middle, two years up, and two years down. Tom was very close to Jimmy. He was in Sheldon for the wake and the funeral. Jim’s death just devastated him. The casket was open, but I couldn’t go up there.” Ardis Shea describes this scene from the funeral service: “Something the priest said disturbed Tom, so he got up, picked up his over-coat, stepped over the pew, and left right in the middle of the service.” The priest, according to Martin McGrath, used the funeral as an opportunity to scold family members like Tom who were in the habit of questioning church teachings. This is what had gotten Tom’s ire up. McGrath returned to New York, but according to many family members, like his mother, the memory of Jimmy remained in the forefront of his consciousness; it moved him toward depression, and he grappled with his grief for years to come.

*

26Back in New York, during 1946, McGrath began writing pulp fiction, including murder-mysteries, for a number of magazines. He often remarked, to this writer, at how easy it was to sell the first stories, and although it took him from what he saw as more important writing, it paid.

27In 1947 he left, with Marian, for Oxford, England, to finally take up studies as a Rhodes Scholar at New College. He completed all course work toward a degree in British Literature, English, but did not complete the thesis. It was at Oxford that he met and retained lifetime friendships with poet Jack Beeching and British historian E.P. Thompson. This volume contains a poignant memoir by Beeching that describes McGrath’s academic experiences at New College which led to his refusal to finish the thesis. While still at Oxford, McGrath’s To Walk a Crooked Mile was published, and it was reviewed in the New York Times Review, Hudson Review, Poetry 74, Masses and Mainstreams, and the Partisan Review. In order, in part, to describe what he meant by “tactical” poetry, McGrath penned O’Leary’s Garland of Practical Poesie while on the scholarship. In addition, he wrote a first novel published years later as This Coffin Has No Handles.

28Back in the States, McGrath lived for a time between Los Angeles and New York, but settled in L.A. in 1950. Tom and Marian divorced a short time later, in October of 1951. Tom described—to this writer—the breakup of his first marriage as a “casualty of war.” The closeness that he and Marian experienced before his deployment had been damaged by his long absence. Ardis Shea recalls her observations regarding the marriage: “I think Marian wanted to settle down and have a family and a normal-type life. I rather gathered that Tom wasn’t interested in doing that right then. I think he later regretted this decision. Even after the divorce, I never heard Tom say a bad word about Marian.” Ardis and James Shea were visited by Tom and Marian upon their return from Oxford while the Sheas were teaching in a rural school between Lisbon and Milnor, North Dakota. Ardis recalls asking Tom to talk with the students in the consolidated school about his Oxford experience. “The children did not want him to leave,” she said, “He held their attention. It was remarkable. Tom never talked down to anyone, and he could talk with older peoples, adults, and children, and like his father, he could make each person feel special.”

29After the divorce, while living in L.A., Tom spent many weekends at his sister Kathleen’s home in Pasadena. Since the war, Tom and Kathleen had rarely seen one another, and as Kathleen recounts, these years proved to be a blessing as they both experienced the warmth of family ties they were so accustomed to from their early years. During this time, Kathleen’s husband Bob Walter and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry were friends; they were both employed by the Los Angeles Police Department. Walter’s grandfather, philosopher James R. Allen, Tom, and Gene would gather at the Walter residence, and as Kathleen’s husband Bob recalls, “would discuss every subject under the sun: poetry, philosophy, current events, science, including Einstein’s theory of relativity.” In one lively session, McGrath began to diagram the theory of relativity on a blackboard to the surprise of those present, including Roddenberry who, according to Walter, was left by McGrath in the “intellectual dust.” “Roddenberry,” Walter suggests, “was brought into the 24th and 25th centuries by Tom McGrath and Mr. Allen.”

30By 1951 McGrath had begun teaching at Los Angeles State College. Tom’s tenure teaching literature, criticism, and poetry workshops earned him the respect of students and fellow writers. Tom had also married his second wife, Alice Greenfield. “He used to ask me,” said Martin McGrath in an interview with this writer, “Do you believe someone can see a person for the first time and be in love with that person? And I said, ‘No Tom, I don’t believe that.’ But Tom claimed he was in love with Alice before he even spoke to her.” Alice and Tom shared a philosophical and activist commitment to social and political justice. They especially felt an affinity in their sympathy for the poor of this world. Alice McGrath’s work on racism, poverty, and other social issues is portrayed in Studs Terkel’s Coming of Age: The Story of Our Century by Those Who’ve Lived It.

31During the years of their marriage Tom established a reputation, according to Alice, as a “marvelous” teacher. From the 1950’s on, Thomas McGrath became mentor and friend to many formally enrolled and informal workshop-setting students, from L.A. to the Midwest. He had a life-long pattern of holding salon-style gatherings in his residence. One such group, the Marsh Street Irregulars—a reference to Tom and Alice’s Marsh Street address—included Gene Frumkin, Alvaro Cardona-Hine, Bert Meyers, Stanley Keisel, Sid and Estelle Gershgoren, among others. It was in L.A. that Tom developed close friendships with poets Edwin Rolfe and Don Gordon. According to V.B. Price—in the foreword to Poets of the Non-existent City, Los Angeles in the McCarthy Era, edited by Estelle Gershgoren Novak— “McGrath was the leading figure in Los Angeles poetry after World War II.” Gershgoren Novak, herself a member of the Los Angeles literary scene in the 1950’s and beyond offers this insight: “In hind sight, it was McGrath’s charisma, warmth, knowledge, talent, and sensitivity to people and writers that was the attractant necessary to create a community of writers.” McGrath was also on the editorial board of The California Quarterly, along with Lawrence Spingarn and others.

32But it wasn’t only students and fellow writers who were paying attention to the writer and teacher, McGrath; the FBI was paying particular attention to the professor because of his leftist politics and his affiliation with the Communist Party of America. And, indeed, Tom was a member of the CPA. According to FBI records, in April of 1952, McGrath was transferred from the John Reed Division of the Communist Party, Los Angeles, to the Eastern Division of the CP. He had been “unattached” since 1951, according to these records, and he had a “desire to get into a community club where he could associate with workers, particularly railroad workers.” These documents also describe Tom as active in the Hollywood ASP Council and the IPP. The records note that he “spoke before various groups” and that he wrote for 1950 and 1951 issues of Masses and Mainstreams.

33FBI agents were in pursuit of McGrath, and his FBI file grew significantly during his years in L.A. On one occasion an agent identified himself to Tom as a fellow student from the University of North Dakota. Accounts written by the FBI agent of McGrath’s surveillance includes the passage that follows:

At approximately 2: 15 p.m. on January 14, 1953, Thomas McGrath, Instructor at the Los Angeles State College, was observed approaching his car located in a parking lot maintained for the faculty members of the Los Angeles State College in the immediate vicinity of that institution. It had previously been determined that McGrath’s schedule for Wednesday terminated at 1: 00 p.m. and that he usually left the campus shortly thereafter. . . On this occasion, after it had been determined that adequate security conditions prevailed, SA [name blacked out] approached McGrath as he walked into the parking lot while SA [name blacked out] observed this approach in order to assure complete security. Agent [name blacked out] approached McGrath by saying “Aren’t you Tom McGrath from North Dakota?”—whereupon McGrath acknowledged his identity and the agent introduced himself as likewise being from North Dakota and as having recalled McGrath as a student at the University of North Dakota during the period of the agent’s matriculation.

34A January 8, 1954, an FBI document reads: “On 1/5/54 a fisure [sic] was established on the residence of Thomas McGrath, 2714 Marsh Ave., Los Angeles, by SA’s [name blacked out] and [name blacked out]. Through physical surveillance, it was determined that McGrath was alone in his residence.”

35Yet, another paragraph from the FBI file reads:

As to Tom McGrath, he is reported to be somewhat of an intellectual and idealist. However, he is not known to have any associates other than those tied up in the communist movement outside his working hours. Tom McGrath works for Los Angeles State College and in view of the fact that he is in the teaching profession and because of the present inquiry into other bodies concerning Communists in the teaching profession, it may be that this fact together with the plan of approach with him which will be outlined below may result with his co-operating with this office.

36An additional entry states:

The agent mentioned to McGrath that he would like to point out the other side of some issues of the CP, and his [McGrath’s] reaction to certain phases of the Communist program. McGrath thereupon stated that he did not believe that any friendly personal discussion of associates could be undertaken with the agent because of his official capacity. He indicated that he did not desire to discuss any topics with the agent and stated that sometime he might change his mind about having a conversation with the agent and if so, would call him. It was suggested that he give some thought to a friendly discussion with the agent about past acquaintances. However, McGrath indicated that he was opposed to engaging in any such discussions.

37The close scrutiny of McGrath by FBI special agents led to a subpoena from William Wheeler, Investigator for the House Committee on Un-American Activities, advising that McGrath was to testify before the committee on April 8, 1953. Thomas McGrath’s counsel, William Esterman, asked the committee to postpone the appearance, since it was not possible for McGrath to be prepared on such notice. It was on April 13, 1953 that McGrath appeared. Additional FBI records indicate that McGrath had been subpoenaed because of “the Committee’s interest in Communist infiltration into local educational institutions.”

38Prior to the subpoena by HUAC, when McGrath was aware that FBI agents continued their surveillance of his house on Marsh Street, he feared that he might lose his job at Los Angeles State College, and indeed after testifying before HUAC, McGrath’s job was in jeopardy. According to FBI records, his contract was not renewed during the 1954 semester. Shortly thereafter, in order to provide instruction and to retain the camaraderie of fellow writers and students, McGrath, Janet Stevenson, and Richard Slobodin created The Sequoia School for writers in L.A. They circulated a pamphlet that announced the purpose of the school. Students enrolled for classes by writing or phoning Alice McGrath, secretary, 2714 March Street, Los Angeles. Phone: Normandie 11590. Despite FBI harassment and the trials of the HUAC subpoena, McGrath completed another book of poems, Figures from a Double World, which was published by Alan Swallow in 1955. This collection received reviews in the New York Times Book Review, Coastlines, Poetry 88, and Mainstream 10. In addition, McGrath finished the first part of his long poem Letter to an Imaginary Friend in 1955, although it wasn’t published until 1962. Regarding his work on the long poem, McGrath said in a SEZ interview, “In some ways I think I’m grateful for the blacklist; I’ve said that maybe it’s a lucky thing. I’m wondering if that poem would have existed if I hadn’t. . . if I’d been teaching; I don’t know.”

39By 1956, McGrath was also working at Artform Wood Sculpturing in L.A., and to further supplement his income, he began to write for films, both animated and live-action. Tom and Alice divorced in 1957 and shortly thereafter McGrath returned, temporarily, to New York City. There, he continued to write narrations and shooting scripts, mostly, for documentary films, but also for a small number of dramatic films. They included A Building is Many Buildings for Graphic Films, Los Angeles, and later, in New York, The Museum and the Fury for Leo Hurwitz and Frontier Films. He continued to write television and movie scripts, both with L.A. and New York based producers, NBC, among them, as his primary and supplementary form of income for many years, including Kef, Conquering Horse, and Paradise, for Mike Cimino. Also, in 1957, Mainstream Publishers published his novel, The Gates of Ivory, The Gates of Horn, with a foreword by Charles Humboldt. Donald Hall, Robert Pack, and Louis Simpson anthologized McGrath’s poems in New Poets of England and America in 1957, as well. With major magazines and newspapers reviewing his work, McGrath developed a wide, diverse audience for his poetry, fiction, criticism, and films.

40By 1960, Tom had returned to teaching, taking an assistant professorship at C.W. Post College on Long Island, New York. He had also married for the third time. Eugenia (Genia) Johnson and Thomas McGrath exchanged vows on February 13, 1960. But McGrath began to develop a dislike of city life. He had counted on New York film work to supplement his income, and in 1962, when it was clear that he had been blacklisted from television companies that previously hired him, including NBC, McGrath made the decision to return to North Dakota, and for several months Genia and Tom lived on the McGrath family farm. During this time, Tom’s aunt Mary Shea came to know Genia and described her as an “outgoing person with a wide variety of interests, a person who was a conversationalist who was liked by many of the farm neighbors.” Many of the extended McGrath family were happy to have Tom in their midst. They were proud of his accomplishments. Tom had returned to Dakota, as he fondly referred to his home state, once before, around 1945, after the war, to spend a winter on the farm, and now again with his new wife. This prompted Martin McGrath to say: “Tom didn’t have Thomas Wolfe’s problem; it wasn’t that he could never go home again; Tom could never leave home.”

41The return to Dakota proved professionally advantageous for Tom, for it was North Dakota State University that took him in as an Assistant Professor of English in 1962. Patricia Hansen, who would become McGrath’s friend and colleague, both at NDSU and Moorhead State University in Minnesota, described the considerable excitement as faculty and students awaited McGrath’s arrival from California. When Hansen first met McGrath and he learned that her maiden name was Kennedy, he greeted her in Gaelic. “He was absolutely charming,” Hansen recalls. “He was a wonderful, loyal colleague and friend who was able to talk fluently about a range of subjects: ancient Greece, American and Native American history, literature, of course, and a host of other subjects. He was a man with great integrity who was always true to his beliefs. He was never a phony.”

42During his tenure at NDSU, he had three leaves of absence: one for personal travel (one term), one while on the Amy Lowell Traveling Poetry Scholarship, and one as a Guggenheim Fellow. He traveled in Europe and Mexico, and as Martin recalled, “Tom really just wanted to write. He was a teacher and he was good at it, but when he received awards, he would find a cheap place to live abroad and do what he loved.”

43In the early 1960’s McGrath and Genia founded the literary journal Crazy Horse. The first part of Letter to an Imaginary Friend was published by Alan Swallow in 1962, with reviews by Louis Simpson in Hudson Review, by M.L. Rosenthal for the New York Times Book Review, by Robert Creeley in Poetry 102, among others. New and Selected Poems was published by Alan Swallow in 1964 and was reviewed by Kenneth Rexroth in the New York Times Book Review, Hayden Carruth in Hudson Review and Richard Howard in Poetry 106. From his days on the waterfront, to his years in Los Angeles and beyond, the idea that McGrath was an obscure writer, working on the periphery of the American poetry scene, without an audience or critical reviewing was simply not true. McGrath said to this writer that unlike many poets, he always enjoyed an audience. It’s just that his audience wasn’t usually the board of the American Academy of Arts and Letters or the English departments in many of the academies.

44At the age of 57, McGrath’s only child was born. Thomas Samuel Koan McGrath soon became the child muse of his father’s poetry, and a host of poems about father and son relations made it into Tom’s œuvre. In the 1978 Frederick Stern interview, McGrath says about Tomasito, as he was nicknamed: “He’s beautiful. All children are beautiful, of course, and especially to their parents, but yeah, he’s a little beauty. I wish I could have more children. I wish that I might have had another child for Tomasito, for him to be with.” In the same interview, McGrath describes the advantages of having siblings and cousins as part of family life. He regretted that Tomasito did not have this family structure to “shield him” from the world. This would have been akin to Tom’s own childhood where cousins grew up protecting, loving, challenging, and encouraging one another. Tom’s sister Kathleen notes that “His love for Tomasito was unbelievable. Tomasito was his life.”

45McGrath was very well regarded at North Dakota State University, and he held the North Dakota institution in high esteem, according to Patricia Hansen, but in 1969, with the offer of a higher salary, McGrath joined the English faculty at Moorhead State University, just across the state line and the Red River. Then President of Moorhead State University, Dr. Roland Dille, was a great champion of the humanities and a sound supporter of McGrath. According to Hansen, Dr. Dille enjoyed referring to McGrath as “my most distinguished faculty.” Moorhead colleague Elizabeth Moraghan remembers McGrath as a wonderful conversationalist who would talk at length about his childhood in North Dakota, especially his home town and blizzards. As she recalls, he smoked non-stop in the classroom, and a frequent command to students was, “Look it up in the bloody dictionary!” Among the gifted students that McGrath would befriend, whose creative work McGrath would himself champion, were Dale Jacobson, Robert Edwards, David Martinson, David Pink, and many others.

46The 1970’s proved fruitful for publishing and awards for McGrath, plus inclusion in a popular poetry anthology increased his visibility in American literary circles. Parts I and II of Letter were combined and published by Swallow Press in 1970, and in the same year, Hayden Carruth published McGrath’s poems in his anthology The Voice that is Great Within Us: Contemporary American Poetry. The collection The Movie at the End of the World was published by Swallow Press in 1973. In addition, Letter, Part III, The Christmas Section was published by American Poetry Reviewin 1974, and Letter Part III, The Christmas Section II was published by Poetry Now 2 in the Fall of 1975. Open Songs: Sixty Short Poems was published by Uzzano Press in 1977. McGrath was awarded his second National Endowment for the Arts Award and his second Bush fellowship. He also received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Society of Western Literature in 1977.

47In 1975, while McGrath was separated from Genia, he was summoned by his estranged wife to Onamia, Minnesota, to protect her and their son, Tomasito, from an intruder. The situation is chronicled in detail in the addendum of this book by an eye-witness, Tom’s friend and protégé, poet Dale Jacobson, who accompanied him to Onamia. In an attempt to keep Tomasito and Eugenia from harm, Tom McGrath accidentally shot Fred Nickaboine as he was breaking into Eugenia McGrath’s residence where Genia, Tomasito, and Tom were hiding in retreat. Tom was tried for manslaughter but not convicted. McGrath told this writer, as recorded by Jacobson in “Onamia,” that he never had a day—following the shooting—in which he did not regret taking another man’s life. The trial is also portrayed in some detail in this compilation by McGrath’s friend Jack Beeching.

48In 1983 Tom McGrath retired from teaching at Moorhead State University. He moved to Minneapolis to be close to his son Tomasito and his brother Martin. His apartment was just blocks from the Loft Literary Center where, in 1986, McGrath was honored with a “Ceili” on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. Among those praising McGrath’s life and work were Robert Bly, Naomi Replanksy, Dale Jacobson, Garrison Keillor, Sharon Dubiago, Sam Hamill, and others. In the same year, the Associated Writing Programs held a tribute to Tom in Chicago where Philip Levine, Studs Terkel, Michael Anania, Reginald Gibbons, and others honored McGrath’s achievements. Additional poets who have openly admired McGrath include E.P. Thompson, Diane Wakowski, Hayden Carruth, Donald Hall, Adrienne Rich, Claribel Alegria, Sergio Ramirez, among them.

49In his last years in Minneapolis, McGrath once again gathered a group of writers and artists around himself. Many of these individuals, known as the McGrath Group, were former students of McGrath and included Jim Dochniak, Robert Edwards, Pamela Sund, Paul Jentz, Curt Tilleraas, and David Pink. McGrath Group members insisted that McGrath accept a workshop fee, but he would hear nothing of this proposal and instead, when he was unable to accomplish daily tasks due to health problems, participants, who met with him every other week for over two years would help by doing shopping and other chores. McGrath’s life-long interest in the “cooking arts” or “cookery” as he called it, sent participants on searches for items such as hicema, shallots, just the right cucumbers for gazpacho and even more exotic food items. The workshop sessions were punctuated by McGrath’s insistence on criticism based on knowledge of traditional form, meter, rhyme, and other poetic devices.

50McGrath received numerous requests for letters of recommendation, for criticism and editorial assistance, and nearly always, he responded to these requests even though he suffered from carpel tunnel syndrome and considerable pain from a failed operation on his neck. In 1989, he hired Abigail Jensen to help prepare his final manuscript, Death Song, and to assist with daily correspondence. His brother Martin remained a constant in his life and became the close companion for Tom that Jimmy had been in his youth.

51It was in 1989 that McGrath fell onto a concrete sidewalk just blocks from his Minneapolis apartment. He sustained head injuries that eventually led to his death on September 18, 1990. He had been hospitalized at Abbot Northwestern in Minneapolis and spent subsequent months in and out of a south-side Minneapolis nursing home. His son, Tomasito, was by his father’s side for many weeks before his death, and Genia, who also lived in Minneapolis, was a frequent visitor. While Tom had periods of lucidity, he suffered significant and sustained cognitive impairment as a result of his injuries. He slept for many hours each day. Martin McGrath describes one instance in which Tom woke from sleep to say, “It isn’t that there is not enough love in the world, Marty, it’s the unequal distribution of it that’s the problem.” A word calendar was put on the wall in his nursing home room, and while most of the medical staff and visitors could not even guess at the meanings of the difficult words, McGrath, when awake and alert, never missed a correct definition. To this writer, on one occasion, after an early evening visit, he said, “You must go now, it’s starting to snow bales of sleep.”

52Upon his passing, Martin McGrath wrote a tribute to his brother that contained the following passage:

. . . because we all wish the best for those we love, I like to think that Tom made it past O’Learys dead end, and I like to build a special place for him, in my imagination, where he has all the things he loved while he was living. I haven’t pinned down the location of this place but with the climate, I’ve given it, it damn well can’t be North Dakota. So, where it is, there are a lot of trees there, and green grass, and definitely, a small river. There has to be some place for the minnows to ‘pattern the trellised shadows,’ right? It’s always summer there and the breeze has that balmy quality to it so you can lay on the grass in the evening in perfect comfort. To the north there is this big coulee that folds its way to the river. There is snow on the slopes and coyotes trot and slink and sing under a perfect moon.

53While Martin says this place “can’t be North Dakota,” the truth is that he has given a perfect description of the prairie farmstead that was the place where Tommy, Jimmy, Joe, Kathleen, Marty, and Jack McGrath shared a warm, trust-filled existence, with the loving support of their parents, grandparents, and extended family. Father William Sherman, a North Dakota priest who had served the Sheldon parish, who knew and admired Thomas McGrath, said some time after his death, that although he realized that Tom declared himself at times an atheist, had he known of his death, he would have buried him with the full rights of the Catholic church—had he been asked. This was of great comfort to Kathleen McGrath, the only surviving McGrath sibling, who remains a devout Catholic. It would be a cliché, yes, to say that we shall never see the likes of him again. But no one who fully knew Thomas Mathew McGrath could ever say otherwise.

Sources Used

54In lieu of endnotes or footnotes, which the editor believes would have interrupted the narrative flow of McGrath: the Early Years; plus a Biographical Sketch, I cite the sources here.

55Much of the account of McGrath’s family life comes from taped interviews with his siblings, Martin and Kathleen (Catherine) McGrath. Those interviews took place between May and July of 1999. Personal interviews were conducted with members of McGrath’s extended family between January, 2000 and June, 2006, including Roger Shea, Ardes Shea, Carol (Shea) Sweeney, Mary Shea, and Kathie (Shea) Fleischfresser, the adopted daughter of Mary and Gerald Shea and her husband Steven Fleischfresser. The tapes and notes from the McGrath family conversations and interviews are in my possession.

56The quotes from pages 255–256 of McGrath: The Early Years are found in the Sheldon Community History, a Sheldon, North Dakota, Centennial publication. Passages used are from pages 9–15.

57From You Can Get There From Here—a Litchfield, Minnesota, Adult Writer’s Group publication—I quote from pages 131–133 on the subject of the grade school education of Highland Township children. The essay used was written by Thomas McGrath’s cousin James Shea. Those quotations are on pages 258 and 259 of McGrath: The Early Years.

58FBI files were relied upon for information regarding Thomas McGrath’s affiliation with the Communist Party of America, including facts about McGrath’s summons to testify before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. The FBI files used are FBI files on Alice McGrath but contain reports of the surveillance of Thomas McGrath. The copies of these files are courtesy of Alice McGrath.

59I turned to The Revolutionary Poet in the United States: The Poetry of Thomas McGrath, edited by Frederick Stern, published by the U of Missouri Press (1988), for a list of book reviews of McGrath’s early works, plus selected quotes that appear on page 267 and 269.

60Interviews with McGrath colleagues Patricia Hansen and Elizabeth Moraghan took place in Fargo in July of 2006. Quotes appear on pages 269 and 270. Those notes are in my possession.