Former 'dead-end kid' finds way to Jesuits, missionary life in India

Published: 2003-12-22

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- It has been almost 60 years since he taught at Gonzaga College High School in Washington, and then for only one year, but the students still call to take him out to dinner, drive him on errands, invite him over to the house for the afternoon. Jesuit Father Ed McGrath is rarely in these parts, so time spent with him is a special occasion. His recent extended visit from Jamshedpur province in India was his first in about five years. Energetic and articulate, he wasted no time making the rounds to see old friends and make new ones. A self-described "dead-end kid from New York," Father McGrath, 80, first journeyed to India in 1949. The Maryland province was looking for men to go to Japan or India in 1945 and '46. Father McGrath applied for Japan but when the provincial asked him to go to India, "I said, 'OK.'" "And the rest is history," he recalled with a laugh in an interview with National Jesuit News, a monthly national newspaper.

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