Edmund Fitzgerald of Milwaukee Dies : Key Figure in Business and Civic Affairs for More Than 50 Years

MILWAUKEE — Business and civic leader Edmund Fitzgerald, whose name on a Great Lakes freighter was immortalized in song after it sank, has died. He was 90.

Fitzgerald, former president of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., one of the nation’s largest, had been a key figure in Milwaukee business and civic affairs for more than 50 years.

Ships were among his major interests. Fitzgerald’s family had been involved in shipping since his great-grandfather immigrated to the United States from Ireland in 1836, said Fitzgerald’s son-in-law, Richard Cutler.

Fitzgerald’s father, William Edmund Fitzgerald, was president of a Milwaukee dry dock company and his grandfather, John Fitzgerald, was a ship captain.

The 729-foot Edmund Fitzgerald, built by Northwestern Mutual, carried iron ore on the Great Lakes from 1958 until it sank in a November, 1975, storm on Lake Superior, claiming its captain and crew of 28.

The story of the sinking was popularized in song by Gordon Lightfoot.

Fitzgerald did not want the ship named after him when it was proposed by the Northwestern board of trustees, Cutler said. The board arranged to have him out of the room when they took the vote.

“Later, he said it was the proudest moment of his life,” Cutler said.

Fitzgerald had a hand in almost every major improvement in Milwaukee from the 1950s through the 1970s. One business leader said the Performing Arts Center, Port of Milwaukee, central post office and Amtrak station were all, in some way, monuments to Fitzgerald.

The list of Fitzgerald’s accomplishments and activities is so long that a Milwaukee Journal editorial once called him a “one-man army.”

Fitzgerald joined Northwestern Mutual in 1933 and became the firm’s 10th president in 1947. He was elected chairman of the board in 1958 and served in that position until he retired at 65.

He died Thursday.