Patricia
Fagan: Stopping to Chat
Patricia Fagan was a "classic gabber," said her
sister, Eileen. She could not pick up dinner rolls at the
store without striking up a conversation about the
clerk's mother's arthritis. Or board the bus from Toms
River to Lower Manhattan, where she was an insurance
claims officer with Aon, without chatting with the
drivers. Or check an insurance claim without finding out,
for instance, about the weather or the claimant's
children's schools.
As a result just about everybody in Toms River, where
she grew up, knew her -- the tall, exceptionally slender
woman of 55 who had a word, or several, with everybody
and never forgot a name. The official Saturday night
greeter at St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church. (A
volunteer job, said Eileen Fagan, that fit her sister
perfectly.) After her death, letters from numerous
insurance clients began to arrive: "I never met Pat,"
they all wrote. "I only knew her from business calls. But
I feel like we've been friends for years."
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