The Foreign Service Journal, March 2006

and three children: Renee C. Riggs of LaCresenta, Calif., Tara C. Binion of Indiana, Pa., and James D. Coffman of Watertown, Mass. Margaret A. Fagan , 90, a retired FSO, died on Nov. 16 in Washington, D.C., of pneumonia. Ms. Fagan was born in Muscatine, Iowa, where she graduated from St. Mathias High School andMuscatine Jr. College. After working for several years in Muscatine at Huttig’s Manu- facturing Co., a real estate firm, and as secretary to the superintendent of pub- lic schools, Ms. Fagan came to Washington, D.C., to work for the fed- eral government. She worked succes- sively as a secretary at the Civil Aeronautics Board, a personnel ad- ministrator in the Board of Economic Warfare, and as a project chief at the Foreign Economic Administration. After the war, Ms. Fagan transferred to the State Department, where she worked in the Office of Foreign Assets Liquidation. She received her commission as an FSO in 1955, and three years later was posted to Genoa as a vice consul. In 1960 she was transferred to Mexico City as consul and chief of the visa section. In 1965, she was assigned to Naples, returning to Washington in 1968. In 1971 she was posted to Tijuana as consul gener- al, and remained there until she retired in 1974. Of Ms. Fagan, former Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Mary A. Ryan writes: “I was especially blessed to have Margaret Fagan as my first boss in the Foreign Service. She was the chief of the consular section in Naples when I arrived there on my first tour in September 1966. It was a time when there were very few women in the Service, and even fewer successful ones like Margaret. She was not only a M A R C H 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 77 I N M E M O R Y u u