Making a living was difficult.  The land was rocky and where there were trees, they had to be cut down and the roots dug out with a pick and shovel.  William and Mary knew it would not be easy, and they worked hard.   James was about 10 when they moved to Lumsden, and he learned to hand-hew the timbers with a broad axe for the family’s new home.  His early experience with the axe earned him a distinguished reputation which followed him most of his life.  Even in teen years, his companions, working in the woods with him, were known to give him the most difficult work because he handled the broad axe with such finesse and dexterity. 

The school was a mile away but went only through the third grade.  William and Mary, both avid readers and well-educated, home schooled their children after third grade.  James learned by reading.

As he got older, young James went to work for Jim Hunt, who lived near Lumsden and who was involved in the shipbuilding business along the banks of the nearby Bay of Fundy.  It became young James’ new job to hew the timbers used in the process of ship building.  Some think that he likely worked on the building of the “Thomas Keillor,” a 1020-ton ship with three masts, built in Dorchester, N.B. in 1875.  It was named for James’ ancestor who was the first in the family to emigrate from Yorkshire, England to Canada in the 1700s.

The Move to Minnesota.
In 1879, Jim Hunt, now married to James’ sister Mary, left New Brunswick to establish a home in Anoka County, Minnesota. In October, a few months after Jim left, James Keillor brought his sister and her son Rozel to join Jim in Anoka.  Jim and his parents had bought a farm there. 

Five years later, in 1885, Jim died from tuberculosis.  Young James, now 25, took on the responsibility of Mary’s family, which included three children, and worked Jim’s 40-acre farm for her.  He continued in this capacity for more than 20 years, until all three children were grown.  Mary had the full support of James in the raising of her three little ones, he acted as a father to them, and they supported and respected him in that role. 

In 1890, James took his 10-year-old niece Gertie and returned to Lumsden for the last time.  The trip may have been simply a visit or perhaps he wanted to convince his family to move to Minnesota.  When he returned to Anoka, he was accompanied not only by his niece but by his younger sister Amelia.  Within 12 years, all but one of James’ family had moved from Lumsden to Anoka.  William and Mary Jane bought a farm there in 1892, less than half a mile from James and Mary, and with a little brook – Trott Brook – running between them. 

James on the Anoka farm, 1890

James was grateful for the help anyone provided him.  When he was on the return trip from Lumsden with his niece and sister, James caught a cold in their unheated Pullman car.  The conductor noticed his discomfort and moved them to a warmer car.  This thoughtful gesture was never forgotten by James, who seemed to gratefully acknowledge anything done for him, this man who filled his days doing for others.

James was described as faithful, steady, dependable and even-tempered.  He loved to read and often read while he sat behind a team of horses plowing a field.   He was also cool-headed.  One day a neighbor arrived as James was milking the cows.  As they visited in the barn, the neighbor noticed James grabbing and squeezing his own leg.  Nothing was said and the two kept talking.  When James got through milking, he stood up and shook a dead mouse out of his trousers.

Start of the Plymouth Brethren Meeting in Anoka.
In 1896, the family met for the first time for the breaking of bread in Anoka. “The little gathering was formed through a visit of Brother Knapp some 17 years ago,” according to an article in “Field and Work,” in 1914.  “He had been preaching in Anoka but with little response when William Evans Keillor invited him out to this part, where he preached the entire summer and returned again the next spring, resulting in a little gathering being formed of about 30 people in all.”

Marriage and a Family.
When he was 46 years old, about 26 years after coming to Anoka, James met Dora Powell, the schoolteacher in the local district.  Son Lawrence Keillor and Daughter Elizabeth Keillor Ducommun told the story this way:

“Mother was a schoolteacher and came out to District 44 to put in her application.  Aunt Dot (Leora) drove her out.  Dad was on the school board, so they came to his house first.  Aunt Mary, Rozel, Sadie and Gertie all lived with Dad.  Aunt Dot told mother, there is a young man for you, thinking Rozel would be a good match.  Mother said, “No, she was going to have the older man.” She got the job and boarded with Aunt Mary.  One time, Dad came over to the schoolhouse and tried to kiss her.  She let him."

"For the wedding, Mother made a suit and a blouse.  She and Dad hitched the horse to the buggy one evening and drove up to St. Francis to the home of Rev. Shadick, the first pastor of the St. Francis Baptist Church, who married them.  Upon returning to their new home, James carried Dora across the threshold and neglected to attend to his horse.  The patient animal was still standing by the doorstep when morning arrived.”

James with Ruth around 1908.

James was a loving father and husband.  His 8 children remembered the affection he showed their mother, often holding her on his lap.  He called her, “Baby Girl,” according to Elizabeth, and never made a decision without her input.  When working the fields with his team of horses, he could be seen with one of his little ones in his arms.  He loved to read and to sing to his little children, often songs from his childhood in New Brunswick such as, “Here we go to Miramichi, Petitcodiac, and Shepody.”  In the evening, the family would gather in the living room to sing their favorite hymns, accompanied by Ruth on the piano.

When he didn’t have a child on his lap, he would often read a book while driving the team. He didn’t attend school very much as a young boy, but he read a lot, said his daughter Elizabeth.  “He had a London newspaper and he learned the book of Proverbs.”

James raised sorghum cane, a treat for his wife and children.  In the fall, he would make the children wooden “swords” and then they would cut the leaves and tassels off the stalks.  The cane was then cut and taken down to a local farmer, who had a press operated by a horse.  The juice ran into large pans and a fire underneath reduced it to sorghum.  There were probably two milk cans full of it.  “We liked to have a piece of bread and butter with sorghum on it when we came home from school,” recalled Elizabeth, “and Mother made good cookies from it, especially frosted creams.”

He also made ice cream.  “Dad usually made ice cream in the summer," said Elizabeth. "We had a crank-type freezer which probably held 2 or 3 gallons of ice cream.  He would chip the ice from a block from the icehouse and crank the freezer until it was creamy.”

James walking to meeting with (left to right) John, Bob, Lawrence, Eleanor and Josephine.
Photo by Ruth.

Leadership.
James was considered of great stature in the community and the local assembly.  He not only served on the local school board but chaired it.  When his father William died in 1912, he stepped forward to help keep the assembly together.  A neighbor was heard to say, “Now that William is gone that little meeting won’t last long.”  But that neighbor was mistaken, for James, with the help of others, continued the meeting.  When discipline was called for, James lovingly and carefully administered it, guided by the Word of God,” wrote son Lawrence.

James and Dora hosted an annual gathering in their front yard on the 4th of July.  As many as 150 adults and children would come from various places across Minnesota and Iowa for good preaching and a big picnic, all under a big tent.   “Firecrackers were discouraged,” wrote Luther Loucks, James’ nephew, “but if one listened carefully, a few of them could be heard down along Trott Brook.”

James, Sept. 1932

While some of his children were still in high school, James became stricken with a terminal illness.  His grandson, Dr. Dan Johnson, said he might have suffered from syringomyelic, a neurological disease that gradually weakens the spine.  James lost his strength in time and was forced to turn over the responsibilities of the farm to his sons. Though Robert had a job in Minneapolis, he spent weekends at home.  James Jr. became the foreman, and John, Lawrence and Bob shared in the labors.  In November 1933, James died. He was 73.

The notice of his death appeared on page 1 of the Anoka Union on Nov. 6, 1933.  His favorite song, “Fairer Than Canaan’s Land” was song at the funeral.  The pallbearers were his four sons.