PULLQUOTE:

“I love my constituents. I visit every single house.”
Rep. Margaret Craven of Lewiston
Margaret Craven: From Ireland to the Maine State House

AUGUSTA – Running from meeting to meeting at the State House on Thursday, Rep. Margaret Craven, D-Lewiston, certainly looked Irish.

Her green suede suit, which she bought after modeling it in a Lewiston charity fashion show, was complemented by a matching scarf and shamrock earrings. Her freckled face and a bright shock of hair topped off the look.

Craven grew up impoverished in Ireland and immigrated to America in 1964. She started off doing odd jobs, later went to college and is now a respected member of Lewiston’s delegation at the Legislature.

On Saturday, she plans to crack open a Guinness, cook some Irish goodies and remember growing up in Ireland, where life was not as fortunate, she said.

Craven was raised in a poor area of Ireland in a family of 11. The country was going through hard times, and there were not a lot of opportunities. Her mother was a housewife; her father did odd jobs.

“I had an eighth-grade education,” she said. “Unless someone was privileged, they didn’t go to high school.”

In 1964 she boarded a plane to Boston in search of a better life. She was 17.

For years she worked as a housekeeper, a job she lined up before she left Ireland. From there she worked in several other homes, but admits to never being very good at the job.

In one home, she recalls bonding with a bunch of black Labrador retrievers. She worked wonderfully with the dogs, her boss told her, but not so well in the house. She was fired.

Her next endeavor was waitressing, she said, which fit her talkative personality better. In that line of work she ended up making lifelong friends.

At one point she flew back to Ireland, but she realized: “I didn’t belong here.”

She came back to Boston, got married and moved to Maine, where she earned her high school diploma, undergraduate and graduate degrees. Craven said she preferred Maine to Boston because the people here were more independent and caring.

She got a job as an administrator with John F. Murphy Homes in Auburn and, after living in Lewiston for 35 years, ran for public office. The idea developed over time.

Every so often she’d come to Augusta for a hearing, but she said she didn’t consider state politics until local representatives convinced her to run for the open Lewiston seat.

About the same time, Craven read a piece in the Sun Journal on local representatives and thought she could do a better job. She ran for her first term in 2002 and won with 68 percent of the vote.

Over the last four years in the House, she said she’s done a lot of advocacy for senior citizens and women’s issues. Her favorite part of the job is campaigning.

“I love my constituents,” she said. “I visit every single house.”

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