Ohio History Journal

LUCY E. KEELER

 

Death came to Miss Lucy E. Keeler at the Memorial

Hospital in Fremont, on Tuesday morning, March 11,

1930. She had been ill since October and had sought

relief in a number of hospitals, but finally returned to

Frement where she gradually grew weaker until her

death. Funeral services were conducted in the Presby-

terian Church of Fremont on the following Thursday.

Some years before her death a newspaper friend

had requested that she prepare a brief sketch of her life

and activities. This she did with the stipulation that it

should not be published until her death. Corrections

were made in this sketch at different times and it was

placed in a safety deposit box in a Fremont bank. Here

her brother, Samuel P. Keeler, found it. From the notes

the following sketch was written and published in the

Fremont Times.

 

LUCY ELLIOT KEELER

Lucy Elliot Keeler, youngest child of Isaac M. and Janette

Elliot Keeler, was born September 27, 1864, in Fremont, Ohio, in

the house at 417 Birchard avenue which was always her home. She

attended the Fremont public schools and Wells College, but her

education was life long since she was a student by nature and

vocation. After leaving college she joined the correspondence

school initiated by a distant cousin, Miss Anna Ticknor of Bos-

ton, for two years as a student, and for some fifteen or more

years an instructor in American history. This work while gratu-

itous was highly interesting and brought her in contact with in-

teresting people. The annual meetings were held at the famous

Ticknor house in Boston, and President Eliot of Harvard, Dr

Samuel Eliot, head of the Boston schools, and others attended

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Lucy E. Keeler                   609

 

and addressed them. While a student in one of these courses

Miss Keeler took a prize offered for the best Shakespearean work

receiving one of Mr. Furness's delightful Variorum editions, au-

tographed and with his bookplate. After Miss Ticknor's death

the society was continued for a time, with Miss Keeler on

the board of management. It was to further publicity for this

society that Miss Keeler published for a year a jolly little monthly

called Pot Pourri, which had a circulation from Maine to Cali-

fornia.

For many years Miss Keeler wrote regularly and at length

for the Fremont Journal, owned and edited by her father and

before she was out of her teens was doing paying writing for

other papers. The Christian Union, edited by Lyman Abbott,

and its successor the Outlook, published many of her articles

and she wrote a large number of the "Spectators," a series of

weekly papers largely done by Hamilton Mabie.  The Boston

Congregationalist published everything she sent in and Outing,

Ladies' Home Journal, Harpers' Weekly and Bazar did the same.

Some brief articles sent to the Youth's Companion attracted

the attention of the proprietor, Mr. Ford, of Perry Mason Co.,

who through the editor, Mr. Edward Stanwood, asked her to

contribute weekly editorials. She did this for ten years, enlarg-

ing her acquaintance enormously and getting valuable training.

"She can certainly write!" was the succinct comment in tiny pen-

cilled handwriting on one of her editorials, in the miniature hand

of Mr. Ford, forwarded her by Mr. Stanwood--as were many

other of the tiny characteristic notes from that extraordinary man,

Wishing to do more writing for adults, Miss Keeler began writ-

ing for the "Point of View" of Scribner's Magazine and the

anonymous article essays, many in number, together with others

in the "Contributors' Club" of the Atlantic Monthly were widely

reprinted and commented upon. But she turned finally from

anonymous work and in 1913 had her first signed article in the

Atlantic Monthly, contributing one or two a year almost every

year since.

LOCAL HISTORY

Miss Keeler's interest in local history was early awakened

and her list of monographs, most of which were first published

in the Ohio Archaeological and Historical publications include:

"The Sandusky River, A guide to the Local History of Fremont,

Ohio, prior to 1860," "Old Fort Sandoski of 1745 and the San-

dusky Country," "Old Fort Sandoski and the de Lery Portage,"

"Ninety-third Anniversary of the Battle of Fort Stephenson,

Spiegel Grove," "The Centennial of Croghan's Victory," "Dedi-

Vol. XXXIX--39.

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610       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

 

cation of the Hayes Memorial Library and Museum," "Unveil-

ing of the Memorial Tablet on the Hayes Memorial Building,"

"The Centenary Celebration of the birth of R. B. Hayes," "Main

Street, Fremont, Ohio," "Pageant commemorating the Centenary

of the First Common Pleas Court of Sandusky County."

In her younger days Miss Keeler published two books, If

I Were a Girl Again and If I Were a Boy, the former of

which went through several editions and was largely used in

girls' preparatory schools of the best class. When the "Fathers

and Sons" series of books was issued some years ago for sub-

scription sale, the editor wrote asking Miss Keeler to contribute

three articles, saying that of all living writers for boys and in

other fields of fiction he put her second.

 

HER ANCESTRY

Miss Keeler was descended from good old Puritan stock.

Her grandfather and great grandfather, Erl and Luke Keeler,

were two of the original proprietors of Norwalk, Ohio, being of

the Connecticut Fireland sufferers who were granted lands in the

Western Reserve, and her father was the first child baptized in

the Episcopal church in Norwalk, of which his grandfather was

the first Junior Warden. Ralph Keeler the immigrant, owned

a lot in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1640; and was one of the orig-

inal settlers of Norwalk, Connecticut. An honorable line of

Keelers in between, one having died in the Canadian war.

Her paternal grandmother was a Marvin (Matthew Marvin,

the immigrant, an original proprietor of Norwalk, Ohio), and her

great grandmother Benedict was a descendant of Thomas Bene-

dict, who helped found the first Presbyterian church in America,

in Jamaica, Long Island, in 1662; and who was also a delegate

to the first English Legislative body convened in New York.

On Miss Keeler's mother's side the line is quite as interesting.

Her grandfather, Judge Samuel Elliot, author, lawyer, orator,

large property owner of Brattleboro, Vermont, a friend and cor-

respondent of John Quincy Adams, was again and again in the

Vermont Legislature; and was defeated for Congress by one

vote, by his friend and neighbor, the father of the distinguished

painter and architect, Hunt. Judge Elliot married Winda Hayes,

daughter of Rutherford Hayes, aunt of the future president,

Rutherford Hayes and his father Ezekiel were both in the Revo-

lutionary War, and great grandmother Hayes' father, Israel

Smith, whose forebears of that name figure in the earliest an-

nals of old Hadley, was Miss Keeler's third Revolutionary an-

cestor on her mother's side. An ancestor of much interest was

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Lucy E. Keeler                   611

 

Rev. John Russel "the greatest hero of Hadley," who led his

flock from Wethersfield, Massachusetts, to found Hadley in the

wilderness, and who sheltered in his own house the Regicides,

Whalley and Goffe. When Yale College was founded, his son

Rev. Samuel Russel was one of the original trustees. Daniel

Hayes, father of Ezekiel, was for seven years captive of the In-

dians, who carried him off into Canada. His tale "A Long Jour-

ney" is of the treasures of early Americana.

 

 

REORGANIZED LIBRARY

Miss Keeler was one of the charter members of the Matinee

Musical club and also of the Colonel George Croghan Chapter,

D. A. R.; and of the Neighborhood Club--the first of a series

of study clubs organized one winter of which the Cosmopolitan,

Coteria and Sorosis have survived to this day.

She joined the Presbyterian church under the pastorate of

Rev. Charles E. Barnes and for many years taught a class of

boys under the name of the Honorable Club. She was a life

member of the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society, a

Trustee of the Sandusky County Historical Society and a member

of the Hayes Memorial Book committee, appointed by Governor

Campbell.

Miss Keeler's most important work perhaps was in the re-

organization of Birchard Library. In her absence from town

and wholly without her knowledge, she was made secretary of

the board, with large powers, and for eight years she did strenu-

ous, unceasing work, an average of five hours a day, but often

10 hours a day. Probably nobody but herself ever began to know

the effort she put forth, the criticism she had to bear, the arduous

physical and mental toil needed to put the library in such shape

as she left it. A survey that she prepared in 1922--on resigning

from the Board and a large scrap book absolutely full of printed

notes from her hand, which she has left to the Library, are slight

tokens of her efforts and her success. She felt that in that work

she was truly benefiting the Fremont she loved so well.

 

LOVED FLOWERS

Miss Keeler was an ardent gardener, and loving every inch

of the half acre homestead left her by her parents made it one

of the most attractive places in Fremont. She was the first per-

son in town to make her garden one of perennials, and the first

to introduce many of the lovely, hardy things, rare trees and

shrubs, which have since become common in Fremont. Her gar-

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612       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications den became famous through her writings about it in the Atlantic, Scribners, The Garden, House Beautiful and syndicate newspaper articles. Strangers from as far as California frequently came to her door asking to see the garden of which they had read. She was most generous both with her plants and her advice, for she made the subject a constant study, keeping up with the latest word in gardening. She was a member of the American Rose Society. Miss Keeler was for many years a member of the Lake Mohonk Conferences, going there semi-annually Several hundred people, many of great distinction, made up these conferences, all called and kept as guests of Mr. A. K. Smiley at his superb re- sort in the Catskills. Here she had the pleasure of seeing and hearing and meeting such men and women as Dr. Edward Ever- ett Hale, Lyman Abbott, Dr. Wm. Hayes Ward, presidents of the great colleges, philanthropists, business men, writers and workers in the various fields considered. Many friendships so formed lasted through life. As a girl of 15 she visited in the White House with the Hayes family and she lived several months in Italy and travelled in Europe shortly before the World War. She spent several winters in Bermuda, with her cousin, Mrs. Russell Hastings, one of the most popular homes in the islands, where she constantly met the Governor General and his family, the Admiral and officers, as well as the most of the American visitors--such as Mark Twain who used to come up every after- noon to tea, H. H. Rogers, then president of the Standard Oil Co., and others. Probably no one now living, outside of the im- mediate family, knew President and Mrs. Hayes as did "L. E. K." In the years succeeding their return from  the White House, there was hardly a day but she saw them, and they both left many marks of their appreciation of her helpfulness. Some of the most interesting reminiscences of them both have been made pub- lic through Miss Keeler's notes and writings.

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