[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 53 (Thursday, April 22, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4286-S4287]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO MARY McGRORY

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, this evening I want to take a few minutes 
of the time of the Senate to pay tribute to and to say a public goodbye 
to Mary McGrory, a friend of long standing to me and my wife Ruth and 
to our daughters Amy and Jenny. Mary passed away last evening here in 
Washington after having had a long illness.
  Mary McGrory was a wonderful, warm, witty, and wise woman. Her death 
is, indeed, a passing of an era when the written word could carry 
meaning, when the written word could actually move people, when people 
looked to a Mary McGrory to give them the kind of inspiration they 
needed or to give them the in-depth analysis they needed to understand 
what was going on in Washington.
  Her writing had such a clarity about it that once I read what Mary 
McGrory had written, I found myself many times saying: Yes, that's how 
I feel. Why didn't I think of that? Why couldn't I have said it that 
way?
  I think of her passing as the passing of an era, like there is a time 
and a place and a circumstance that happens in the passing of time when 
certain individuals do something, make something, or leave an imprint 
in some way that you know will never happen again, such as the passing 
of a Michelangelo, a Leonardo da Vinci, a Shakespeare, a time and a 
place for Shakespeare and his magnificent writings never to be seen 
again. I think of that when I think of Mary McGrory because we may 
never see her kind of writing ever again.
  Oh, with the advent of computers, sound bites, trying to get 
everything into 30 seconds or trying to make everything so simple that 
it is reduced to meaningless jabber, it may be that we will never see 
her kind of writing again.

[[Page S4287]]

  Mary McGrory could make words dance. She could make sentences sing 
and turn paragraphs into symphonies. But it was not just her writing 
alone that endeared so many of us to Mary. It was just Mary, such a 
unique individual. It is hard to describe sometimes. I guess moments 
like this when you know you will never have her company again, you 
think about the pleasant times you spent together.
  Of course, I always think about Mary's annual St. Patrick's Day 
bash--party, if you will--at her home on Macomb Street. I didn't make 
every one. Sometimes I was in Iowa on the weekend. It was always on the 
weekend before or after St. Patrick's Day. Usually before. But I made 
several of them.
  They were wonderful affairs. There was, of course, music, a lot of 
singing, and, of course, Mary McGrory's lasagna which was always kind 
of odd. One would think that maybe on St. Paddy's Day one would have 
corned beef and cabbage, an Irish dish or Irish stew, something like 
that, but we always had lasagna. Mary McGrory was very proud of her 
Irish heritage, but I always thought she felt a bit confused. While she 
was Irish to the core, she loved Italy and loved going to Italy, and 
she loved having lasagna on St. Patrick's Day.
  She one time said, and I am paraphrasing because I don't remember the 
exact words: It is too bad the Irish could not have been born in Italy. 
As I said, she was sometimes, I think, a little confused whether she 
wanted to be more Irish or maybe more Italian, but she was Irish to the 
core.
  Her St. Patrick's Day events were wonderful occasions. There is that 
wonderful song about when Irish eyes are smiling, and something about 
the lilt of Irish laughter, you can hear the angels sing. When Mary 
McGrory's eyes lit up and when she laughed, she was all Irish and you 
really could hear angels sing.
  We always had music and songs. Everyone had to perform at Mary's St. 
Patrick's Day parties. Everyone had to perform. She always had people 
of talent there to play the piano or some musical instrument. Since I 
am musically challenged, and she knew this, I was always commissioned 
to sing. My song always thereafter was Mother McCree. I always 
substituted the words ``Mary McGrory'' for ``Mother McCree'' which 
delighted her to no end.
  Mary McGrory was a clever woman. She knew how to cajole, how to 
sometimes even plead, ask, prod, and act terribly helpless knowing that 
someone would pick up her suitcase, carry her belongings, get something 
for her, and when that happened, and you would retrieve something or 
carry something for her, do something for Mary, when you finished doing 
it, there was this twinkle in her eye and you knew you had been had one 
more time. She was very clever.
  Mary and my wife Ruth became fast and strong friends over gardening.
  I enjoyed gardening, although I am not much of a gardener myself. I 
would sit and listen to them talk about gardening, or Mary would come 
out to the house and my wife would take her around or ask her about 
this flower or that flower. Of course, we would go to her place and 
they would go out and look at Mary's flowers and what was wrong here 
and what should be planted there. I always felt my job was to go down 
to Connecticut Avenue and pick up something to eat and come back at the 
appropriate time when they had finished talking about gardening.
  Much has been written and much will be written about Mary's 
background and where she went to school and what got her into 
journalism, but I think more should be said about the imprint she left 
on so many people. She was not only a warm, wise, witty, and clever 
woman, she was an inspirational woman to so many people.
  After you had been with Mary, or after maybe reading one of her 
columns, you always felt better. You felt better about the world around 
you. You felt better about things maybe you thought were going wrong. 
Maybe you were mad about something the Government was doing in one 
administration or another. You read her column and you felt no matter 
how bad things were, it was going to be okay; we were going to get 
through it; right would prevail; justice would triumph and people of 
good will would take over.
  There is an old folk song with this refrain: Passing through, passing 
through, sometimes happy, sometimes blue, glad that I ran into you. 
Tell the people that you saw me passing through.
  Well, Mary, you passed through and in your passing through you 
inspired us; you made us think; you prodded us to question, and always, 
to the end, gave us hope and courage that life will be better for those 
who come after us.
  So we say goodbye to Mary McGrory, thanks for passing through, thanks 
for touching each of us so profoundly as you did when you passed 
through.
  I yield the floor.

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