Society of the Painted Window: Peter Fagan

Peter Fagan

Another of Cline's associates in the Society of the Painted Window at the University of Michigan was Peter Fagan, who is remembered today as a shadowy figure in the life of Helen Keller (1880-1968), the well-known deaf and blind humanitarian, for he was the man she loved and tried to marry, after a brief courtship in later half of 1916. The relationship was ended by Keller's family and her teacher, Helen Sullivan. In most of the literature on Keller there is very little correct information about Peter Fagan.

He was born in Holly, Michigan, on 8 December 1890, the son of William H. Fagan (1864-1958) and his wife Agnes Ann Haddon (1866-1964), who were married in 1888.  Peter was the oldest of four children; he had two younger sisters and a younger brother.

Fagan attended the University of Michigan from 1908 through 1912, though his name also appears on the masthead of The Painted Window in 1913. After leaving the University of Michigan without graduating, Fagan did some newspaper work for the Boston Herald and other newspapers. He also worked as press secretary for Helen Keller, before returning to Michigan where he worked on the further newspapers, including the Detroit Free Press, the Detroit News, and the Detroit Times. In his obituary in the Detroit News Fagan was described as a "militant labor newspaper publisher and spokesman for the dissatisfied" who had a career of "brilliant political reporting."

On his draft registration card (of June 5, 1917) he listed "religious and conscientious objections" to the draft, and signed it under protest. Around 1919, he married Sarah ("Sadie") Robinson (1894-1984), who had also attended the University of Michigan.  They had four daughters. The first was Ruth (1920-1954), who became the poet Maxwell Bodenheim's third wife in 1952. Both she and Bodenheim were murdered in February 1954 (the killer claimed he ought to get a medal, for he had  killed two communists).  The other daughters include Mary (Fagan) Bates (1922-2008) who taught in the art department at Colorado State University; Ann Fagan Ginger (b. 1925), lawyer, author and civil rights activist; and Jean Fagan Yellin (b. 1930), historian and Distinguished Professor Emerita at Pace University.

After his marriage, Fagan settled in East Lansing, Michigan. In 1934 he was appointed secretary of the Michigan Public Utilities Commission by the Michigan governor.  In 1936 he founded a union newspaper, the News of Lansing, which ceased publishing in 1942. Peter Fagan died after a brief illness at the St. Lawrence Hospital in Lansing on 16 September 1946 at the age of 55.