Grant High School - Memoirs Yearbook (Portland, OR)

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THE OPEN DOOR IS CLOSED The open door is closed. Yes, the open door to the office of Elizabeth Caldwell McGaw, where kindness, friendliness, love and cheerful advice reigned, has closed. After three years of more suffering than most individuals experience in a lifetime, Elizabeth McGaw, dean of girls at Grant high school, passed away on August 15, 1947. Shortly after Grant opened its doors, Elizabeth McGaw came as an English teacher, but it was not long before she was promoted to the rank of viceprincipal. In this position she devoted her life to the school and its students. She was a valued counselor and was admired, respected and loved by teachers and students alike for her warm and friendly personality and her keen wit. Many are the men and women of today who recall her with gratitude for the hours she devoted to their welfare. Dean McGaw lived a life of culture and refinement, for she loved the arts, the beautiful. It was not uncommon, after a stirring dramatic or musical presentation by the students, that the teacher responsible for the entertainment received a personal note of appreciation. However she was not unacquainted with grief. More than once she had comforted a lonely freshman, listened to the personal and domestic troubles of the unhappy and helped a delinquent girl in difficulty. During the last three years of her life Elizabeth McGaw endured great pain without complaint or ever revealing her plight to anyone. If anything, she seemed to attack her work more fiercely, scarcely ever missing a school day or neglecting her duties as a chaperone. When she finally resorted to the use of a cane, the dean poked fun at herself and blamed her condition on old age. The climax came on July 25, 1947, when, rising as usual to keep up her part in the daily routine of her home with her elderly parents, whose devotion to her and hers to them made their home an ideal one, she became faint with pain and in falling fractured her hip. She was immediately hospitalized and words of sympathy came pouring in from all over the country. Her last efforts were used to write “thank you” notes for gifts, and with her last breath she uttered, “Thank you for the roses” sent to her bedside by a senior class. So was written the last chapter in the life of Elizabeth Caldwell McGaw and the door was closed. Yes, the open door of Dean McGaw’s heart and soul was closed to her earthly companions. As the mortal door closed another was opening —a door a little higher up and a little harder for some people to reach, but not for Elizabeth McGaw whose spirit rose above all earthly things to stand before us a model of love, devotion and self-sacrifice. JACK LANDRUD Reprinted from Grantonian of September 12, 1947

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GRANT HIGH

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ELIZABETH CALDWELL McGAW