Pam (Patricia Alice Marie) McGrath, 80, of Sedalia, died Wednesday, December 17, 2025 at her home.
Pam (Patricia Alice Marie) McGrath was born March 25, 1945 in Sedalia, Missouri to Baffie and John Joe. She loved playing in the ditch, catching tadpoles and running away from home to make a fire to roast her saltines. Pam has always been a free spirit. She hitchhiked from St. Louis to San Francisco in the late sixties but always with a man for safety, but lugging her hair dryer and heavy boots around snuffed the traveling bug from her system.
Pam attended Sacred Heart Grade and High School (perhaps the seed of her strong faith) and St. Louis University and then to Hofstra University to study botany because she needed sciences to be a doctor. That ended when she discovered she would have to go to summer school forever which was not an option. She continued locally at UCM to make her father happy. It didn’t last long even though she kept a cooler of champagne in her room.
Pam settled back in Sedalia to stay with her mother Baffie and has remained the focal and vocal point of all in her family. The family history will likely die with her as well as the personal history of Sedalia. In 1974 she started working at the Homestead and bought it in 1978. This was the beginning of her career in the restaurant business. When the Homestead burnt down in 1986, she found a new locale on Broadway which she named “McGrath’s”. Seeing all the customers was the highlight for Pam and taking her workers under her wing was her natural way. McGrath’s became the local meeting place.
Pam always had a beautiful voice, singing in the Sacred Heart High School Choir at daily Mass and for funerals at St. Patrick’s in Spring Fork. She was a devout Catholic her entire life and was an RCIA sponsor for three people. Her faith sustained her.
Pam was preceded in death by her parents and younger sister Michele (Mickey) McGrath. She is survived by her sisters, Teresa Aldrich (Lee) and Kathe Dunlop, brother-in-law, Rick Cusick, nieces Alison Dunlop Saunders (Brian), Sarah VonPollaro and her special nephews, Jason and Theo, cousins and myriads of friends, especially Jake Johnson, Johnny Simmons, Kathy Tippie, Mike Gray, Jimmy Holden, Kathryn Gerling, Amanda Davis, Rhonda Brooks, Dakota Miller, Jana and Chuck Leftwich, and special thanks to Fr. Grievin Rodriguez Aguero!
Memorial Mass will be Saturday, December 20, 2025 at 12:00 P.M., at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church, Sacred Heart Chapel, with Fr. Joe Corel officiating. Inurnment will be in Crown Hill Cemetery. Visitation will be from 10:00 A.M. until Noon at the church. Memorial donations may be made to Bothwell Hospital Foundation, Sacred Heart School Foundation or Sedalia Animal Shelter in care of McLaughlin Funeral Chapel.