| Notes |
- Born in Dixon Illinois on 29 December 1915, William Enos Keithley, Jr. was the second child and only son of William Enos Keithley and Esma Leora Seavey. He was known as Bud to his parents and sister, Enos by his childhood friends, Bill by his adult friends, Enie by his future wife, and Daddy by his future children.
Dixon Illinois was a farming community during the years of Bills youth, and he grew up fully participating in that rural life. While his earliest life was on his fathers Keithley Gardens farm, the family moved to 920 Brinton, and finally to 742 North Ottawa Street, Dixon, Illinois, where he resided until he left for college. He and his sister used to work inside the family greenhouses and every summer he would work at his uncles produce farm, known as the truck farm to the family.
Bill obtained his schooling at Dixon North Central Elementary School and Dixon High School.
Bills best friend during his childhood was Harold Goeke. Where one was found, the other was also. In later years, Bill would remember fondly how he and Harold as a pair of teenage boys took a canoe trip down the Rock River, from its source in Wisconsin, to its terminus in the Mississippi River. Bill stayed in loose touch with Harold throughout his life, including occasional visits in Illinois and even a telephone conversation in December 2013. Harold married Bills cousin Esther, and Bill was Harolds Best Man for their wedding.
Family life included strong associations with music, both in playing of music and in singing. The family owned a piano, which his mother played, and his father played the Guitar and Banjo. Bill developed a lifelong love of singing characterized by singing in the fields as a child and singing to himself and family in his adult years. In addition to song, Bill developed a remarkable whistling skill and taught himself to play the harmonica. These remained as skills and characteristics that were often noted and applauded by his family and those he met throughout his life.
College
Bill attended college at the University of Illinois, Urbanna-Champaign Illinois, 175 miles southeast of Dixon, majoring in horticulture. While there, Bill met Lydia Bruce Tilley, his future wife. In later years, he would tell the story of how he met her while crashing a freshman/transfer student mixer, at the end of which, he and his future wife went off to the malt shop with Lydia Bruce sitting on his lap as they rode in his friends crowded car.
During his college years, which were the latter depression-era years, Bill worked at a variety of jobs to defray his expenses. One of these jobs was in a dining hall of a women’s dormitory on campus, which experience stuck with him and which he mentioned in later life when talking about his college years.
Marriage and Family
Not long after college, Bill and Lydia Bruce (who went by Bruce) married on 23 June 1940, in Memphis TN, at Bellvue Baptist Church. Over the years, they had three children: Richard Allen Keithley, born 4 January 1943; Carol Ann Keithley, born 23 December 1946; and Virginia Bruce Keithley, born 13 August 1950.
As happened to many young couples, World War II interrupted their early family life and career. Richard was born before the war, and Carol and Ginger after the war. During the war years, while Bill was in boot Camp or deployed, Bruce and Richard lived with her parents in Memphis.
After the war, Bill worked as a Nurseryman in Memphis supporting his growing family. In 1958, the family moved to eastern Tennessee, living in Maryville until 1966 until they moved to Vonore. In about 1978, the nest now empty, Bill and Bruce moved to Chatsworth GA, establishing the Bowater Paper Company nursery there. This move was necessitated by the TVA creation of the Tellico Lake which flooded the nursery and the property of the family house.
The family religious life was centered in the Bellevue Baptist Church during the Memphis years and in the First Baptist Church of Maryville during the Maryville and Vonore years.
He and Bruce retired in 1982, and moved back to Maryville, TN, residing on Jackson Road.
In 1982, Bruce was diagnosed with cancer, dying in Jan 1983. Bill never remarried.
Jobs
Bills first job out of college, about 1940, was in Naperville, IL, working for the Rumsfeld Estate, maintaining Mr. Rumsfelds greenhouses and tending to his property, and living in an upstairs apartment on his property. After a while, Bill took a job in LaCross, WI. After their marriage, Bruce joined him in LaCross, working as a part time teacher.
World War II was in progress in Europe at this time. With the war in Europe, The Selective Service Act of 1940, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, and the US declaration of war against Japan and Germany, military service or employment in a war critical industry became necessary.
Accordingly, Bill received training in Memphis, and then moved the family moved down to base housing on Brookley Army Airfield, Mobile, AL, where Bill performed airplane instrumentation repair and installation. Their first child, Richard, was born in Mobile during this time.
Despite working in a critical war effort, Bill was drafted by his Illinois draft board. He entered the Army in 28 April 1944 at Ft. Sheridan, IL. After basic training at Fort Sheridan, IL, he was shipped out to Luzon, Philippines in the Pacific theater, where he conducted airplane instrumentation repair and installation. After V-J day, he briefly became a part of the army of occupation of Japan, before returning to the United States and mustering out of the Army on 1 March 1946 at Camp Chaffee, Arkansas.
After the war, Bill rejoined his family in Memphis taking several jobs in the Memphis area between 1946 and 1958. These jobs included a short stint working for
a. a nursery in Germantown, TN,
b. Morningside Greenhouse, running the greenhouse for the Norfleet family
c. Nichols Landscaping of Memphis
d. City of Memphis landscaping department
During these years, the family resided initially in the home of Bruces family (756 Prescott Circle) before moving into a house at 3898 Summer Ave. They later moved into a farmhouse on the Norfleet estate at Walnut Grove. In 1953 they moved to a house at 4090 Philwood Circle.
In 1958, Bill took a job with the Bowater Paper Company, working for and ultimately running a large nursery, in Vonore TN, that raised pine trees, selecting pine cones from the best trees, developing seedlings, and then packing the seedling up and shipping them out to other Bowater nurseries to be planted and grown for harvesting for paper pulp. He remained in this job until he retired in 1982. However, because of the TVA creation of the Tellico Lake, this job relocated from Vonore, TN to Chatsworth, GA before the lake was created in 1979. During the Bowater years, Bill and his family lived at 407 North Maple Street, Maryville, and at the Rose Island Nurserymans house, Route 1, Vonore, TN, and finally at the Nurserymans house at the Bowater Nursery in Chatsworth, GA.
Later Years
Upon his retirement, Bill and Bruce returned to Maryville TN from Chatsworth GA, moving into a house at 308 Jackson Drive (later named Luther Jackson Drive) for their retirement years.
After the passing of his wife, Bruce, Bill took up bowling, became a member of the Kiwanis Club in Maryville, supported diabetes causes, and continued his love of reading, with a focus on the Civil War, North American Indian life, and Zane Grey novels. He also developed a love of travel, traveling through the western United States by train and bus, and to eight foreign countries (Greece, Italy, Egypt, France, Spain, Germany/Austria, and England) with tours led by his son Richard.
In June 2003, at age 88, he sold his home and moved into Shannondale Retirement Center, Maryville, TN, as one of the original residents upon its opening.
In 2004, he and Richard went up to Dixon, IL for the 90th birthday of his sister, Retta Jean, known as Suzie to the family. During this trip, they also visited Harold Goeke in Litchfield, IL, past family homes in Dixon, and Memphis TN, and Gracelandwhile in Memphis. The next year, on his 90th birthday, a large celebration with family and new and old friends was held at Shannondale.
Until his hearing and vision loss became too great, Bill was an active participant in the Shannondale social life, where he made many new friends - and during which time he discovered himself to be in the minority as a single male. In 2012, with declining strength, Bill moved across the street into the Shannondale Assisted Living Facility. Finally, he moved into the Shannondale Acute Nursing Care facility for the last few weeks before his death on 26 December 2013.
Bill is buried with his wife in the Grandview Cemetery in Maryville, TN.
Remembrances
Like his father, Bills favorite tree was the Ginkgo tree. He had a Ginkgo at the Jackson Drive home. When he sold the house, he left a beautiful, mature Ginkgo providing shade and natural beauty in the front yard. When he lived in Shannondale, his family would take him for drives past his former house and he would speak very fondly of that tree. When his daughter Ginger and her husband moved into their first house in Knoxville, he planted a Ginkgo in their yard which traced back to a Ginkgo that his father had planted.
His wife and Carol loved to hear him whistle A Boy and His Dog.
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1915 - 2013 (97 years)
