Educator.
Born at Keswick Ridge, New Brunswick on 3 August 1861, son of Joseph McKeen (c1831-?) and Mary Jane Clark (c1834-?), he became a school teacher in his native province sometime before 1891. On 6 May 1885 at Fredericton, he married Frances Alwilda J. Dunphy (1861-1897) and they had two sons: Donald Chesley McKeen (1891-1971) and Henry McKeen (1893-1902). He arrived in Manitoba as early as 1901 when he remarried to Anna Maria McDonald (c1863-1911) at Winnipeg on 25 December 1901. Following her death, he married a third and final time, to Agnes Phoebe Baird (c1871-1931) at the Cadilac Apartments in Winnipeg on 14 July 1915.
He worked in classrooms across rural Manitoba, including in Township 2 Range 5 East in the Rural Municipality of Franklin (1901), at Rossburn School (sometime between 1896 and 1908), West Oakland School (1910-1911), Isbister School (1912), Hazelridge School (1914, Principal), Riding Mountain School (1914), at Moosomin, Saskatchewan (1916), Montgomery School (1920), Duck River School (1930-1931), and Flee Island School. He resided in Winnipeg for many years, later retiring to the Middlechurch Home.
On 24 June 1947, while as a pedestrian at the corner of Broadway and Osborne Street in Winnipeg, he was struck by a vehicle and suffered a concussion. He died at the Winnipeg General Hospital two months later, on 28 August 1947. Contrary to local newspaper notices, his remains were not buried in the Brookside Cemetery but were returned to New Brunswick and buried with his first wife at Dunphy Cemetery in Kingsclear, York County.
Birth marriage registrations, New Brunswick Vital Statistics.
Marriage registrations, Manitoba Vital Statistics.
1901 Canada census, Automated Genealogy.
1916 Canada census, Library and Archives Canada.
“Summer School of handicraft closing,” Manitoba Free Press, 7 August 1913, page 4.
“Personal and Social [There was a quiet wedding...],” Manitoba Free Press, 17 July 1915, page 64.
Death notice [Agnes Phoebe Baird McKeen], Winnipeg Tribune, 24 January 1931, page 13.
“85-year-old man hit by street car,” Winnipeg Tribune, 25 June 1947, page 11.
Death notice, Winnipeg Free Press, 10 September 1947, page 21.
Death notice, Winnipeg Tribune, 10 September 1947, page 21.
Dunphy Cemetery burial transcriptions, FindAGrave.
Curry/Currey/Furrie family tree, Ancestry.
Henderson’s Winnipeg and Brandon Directories, Henderson Directories Limited, Peel’s Prairie Provinces, University of Alberta Libraries.
This page was prepared by Nathan Kramer.
Page revised: 23 May 2024
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