Matt McKeon
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2019
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He was 92. He lost consciousness several days ago and died early today. Suffering from dementia, he has not been able to recognize anyone for a couple of years.
He was part of a huge Irish Catholic family that fought like cats and dogs. Weddings(I have dozens of cousins) often degenerated into arguments and occasionally brawls. I must say that they would close ranks against outsiders
He grew up poor in the Depression, not enough to eat poor, the poorest in a poor neighborhood and scrapped and fought with the best of them. He was determined to escape the circumstances and tried for college. A stint in the Korean War, and the G I Bill made him the first McKeon to attend college. He was a newspaper reporter for 15 years(he interviewed JFK once), and then switched careers to economic development and business. I grew up in a suburban house, with a lawn and cub scouts and school plays etc., my path to college was never in doubt. He was fascinated, or obsessed about his immediately past, and wrote a book about his parents and grandparents, and growing up in the Depression. He cared for my mother until she died. He really didn't have a purpose after that
Had some surprising aspects to his personality. He gave me volumes of Chekov, and Dostoevesky, when I was a teenager saying these books had been influential with him. I had never seen him read anything but a newspaper my whole life.
He was part of a huge Irish Catholic family that fought like cats and dogs. Weddings(I have dozens of cousins) often degenerated into arguments and occasionally brawls. I must say that they would close ranks against outsiders
He grew up poor in the Depression, not enough to eat poor, the poorest in a poor neighborhood and scrapped and fought with the best of them. He was determined to escape the circumstances and tried for college. A stint in the Korean War, and the G I Bill made him the first McKeon to attend college. He was a newspaper reporter for 15 years(he interviewed JFK once), and then switched careers to economic development and business. I grew up in a suburban house, with a lawn and cub scouts and school plays etc., my path to college was never in doubt. He was fascinated, or obsessed about his immediately past, and wrote a book about his parents and grandparents, and growing up in the Depression. He cared for my mother until she died. He really didn't have a purpose after that
Had some surprising aspects to his personality. He gave me volumes of Chekov, and Dostoevesky, when I was a teenager saying these books had been influential with him. I had never seen him read anything but a newspaper my whole life.