McGrew, Ellen Z., 1919-2008

Ellen Zukunft McGrew (1919-2008) was an officer in the United States Navy, State of North Carolina Archivist, Department of Agriculture and Social Security administrator, high school teacher and women's basketball coach, medical X-Ray technician, political activist, world traveler, a Maine lobsterwoman, a purser on the famed Casco Bay Steamship, Sabino, a wife, and mother.

Born in Portland, ME, to Johannes A.E. Zukunft, and Helen McCann, McGrew graduated from Portland High School where she was an all-star basketball player. Following high school, she graduated from Westbrook Junior College and worked as an X-ray technician.

After the events in Pearl Harbor in 1941, McGrew joined the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service or more commonly, Women in the U.S. Navy), of the United States Naval Reserve (USNR) in 1942. McGrew's naval training took place in Cedar Falls, IA, and at the Bethesda, MD, Naval Hospital (1942-1943). Within a year, she was sent to Officer's Training School at Smith College earning the rank of Lieutenant. She was the only woman sent to the Navy's Anti-Submarine Warfare School. Following her training, she served with the 6th USNR District Headquarters in Charleston, SC, as an Operations Officer helping track and destroy German submarines. She resigned her commission in 1946, and remained in the Naval Reserves until 1957.

After the war (1948-1950), McGrew attended Boston University and the University of South Carolina earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. For the next seven years, she taught high school and coached women’s basketball in Rumford, Maine; Falls Church, Virginia, and Columbia, S.C.

On June 21, 1956, McGrew married Charles W. McGrew III of Columbia, S.C., at St. Christopher's Catholic Church on Peaks Island, Maine.

McGrew became an Archivist for the North Carolina Department of Archives and History in 1967. She remained there for 18 years until her retirement in 1985.

She died in 2008 and is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh.