Bob, the farm boy, in the early 1920s.

Bob began selling dental supplies in the mid-1950s.

Bob and his mother Dora who was visiting the family in Kansas.

Last photo of Bob and Flora taken in 1971.

Bob

By Rick and Dave Keillor, sons

Farm Boy

If I heard it once I heard it a thousand times: Farm boys were superior in every way. They could work harder, they could whip a city boy anytime, they could load more hay, hoe faster, and he knew that when the football team from Sedalia (who were undoubtedly “farm boys”) played my city school they would dominate. My dad grew up on a farm and he said he worked harder than all of his brothers and sisters. According to him, his sisters did very little because they didn’t even get up until 10 or 11 in the morning. After his father died, as the oldest, he became the one that kept the farm afloat.

You can take the boy away from the farm but you can’t take the farm out of the boy, as the old saying goes. This was true. We lived many places. We lived in multiple houses in Dallas, Tulsa and Kansas City. It seems that the most important aspect of any house was where a “garden spot” would be located. We also raised enough chickens to provide a weekly Sunday meal of two chickens. We didn’t have chicken on slaughter weekends so that calculates to 100 chickens. Much effort went into the building of a perfect coop. At each new house he would hire a person the first spring to till the ground with a plow to loosen up the soil. Then we would plant the crop. He was only able to get his boys to do a minimum amount of work tending. In Missouri the soil was heavy clay so weeding was like mining anthracite coal. Nonetheless we always had a lot of vegetables canned and ready for winter. – Rick Keillor

The Trickster

Streetcars can’t climb hills on greasy tracks. Everyone knows that. Bob and his cousin Luther proved it. While attending business college in Minneapolis, Bob and Luther went out late one Halloween night and greased the uphill streetcar tracks. The result was that the city had to bring out trucks to pull the streetcars up the hills during the morning rush hour. – Dave Keillor

Sister Act

Bob didn’t seem to have a lot of respect for his sisters — at least not while they were all still kids. He made it clear in subtle ways that he thought they were pampered and spoiled. The boys, of course, put in long days doing farm work as soon as they were able. But Bob thought the girls sat around the house not doing much of anything. He made his disdain clear whenever we had a hot dish. He would unfailingly tell us how when they had one at home, his sisters would in unison whine, “Don’t give me any top, bottom or sides.” Bob’s attitude towards his sisters seemed to carry over to their adult years. I remember him being more than a little annoyed by what he viewed as bragging by Eleanor and Bessie about how smart their kids were, and how their kids were the cream of the crop in the Isle, Minnesota, public school system. – Dave Keillor

Dental Supplies

Bob graduated from Anoka High School in 1926. He probably continued to work at the farm for a while. One summer he followed the harvest in the fall, otherwise I don’t know what happen in these years. In the 30s he and Luther Loucks got jobs at a dental supply house in Minneapolis and lived in the YMCA downtown. Luther was the glad-hander type and my dad was nuts and bolts so they went on different career paths as dental supply men. My dad knew the product and how to keep track of the inventory. He was transferred to Dallas where Davey and I were born and got fed up with the company.

He quit and came back to Minneapolis where our family lived with my mother’s family, the Allans. He was without a job until Luther, who was managing the Tulsa branch, offered him a job. We move to Tulsa where my brother Bill was born.

Our first house was a rented duplex owned by Luther next to the Hidy Tidy Diaper Laundry. Luther wanted to rent the front of the duplex to a doctor and a dentist so we moved to the back part and we had two of everything except a living room and dining room. This wasn’t working so we moved to another house that was on a quiet street. This didn’t work out very well, either, when the bed fell through the floor because of termites. Then, my dad got a job in Kansas City, Missouri. We got a rental house with a “garden spot.” We lived there maybe two years until my mom and dad bought a house for a whopping $10,500. Finally, a place to call home and mix cement.

In the middle 1950s years he was offered a job selling dental supplies on the road. He was excited because he would get an automobile and be able to earn more money. At first, he thought he could come home most every night but Missouri is a big state and he was mostly gone all week. After while he was doing so well with his sales the company decided to break up his territory and hire an additional sales person. In 1961 he moved to Minnesota and worked for Les MacNeice (Leonard MacNeice’s brother) at Gopher State Dental Supply where he worked until he passed away. The dental supply business gave us kids some benefits, too. We got to play with lead and mercury, an old dental chair and x-ray and, best of all, dental care. – Rick Keillor

Letters Home

Bob never talked much about his family, so I never knew a lot about his mother, father, brothers, sisters, aunts, and uncles. It was probably his introverted nature. There were occasional letters to siblings, but Bob’s annual sojourns to Minnesota were his primary family contact — except his mother.

I remember Bob’s letters to his mother as a Sunday afternoon ritual. He would sit at the old open-frame Underwood typewriter and compose a letter home to his mother. He would type at about 70 words per minute — which was no mean feat — but he could also engage in a normal conversation while he typed. How he did it, I do not know.

Nor do I know what was in the letters. I assume it was just “news from our house”. I never thought there were any great secrets — and I didn’t care enough to ask. But I did admire Bob’s dedication in faithfully adhering to his weekly ritual. – Dave Keillor

Cement

When we grew up, tales of Uncle Alley and his prowess with cement and masonry were honored. My dad, along with other Keillors, had a fondness for cement, sand, gravel and water mixed together in just the right proportions. The ingredients had to be place in a mortar box and pulled back and forth with hoe first dry and then with water slowly mixed in until it reached the right consistency. My dad knew the formula and made us follow it religiously. Concrete is permanence. It is first a liquid, then rock hard with only a few hours to control it before hardening. It is a perfect metaphor for a Keillor’s disposition.

Bob knew how to take materials and adapt them to whatever he needed. For example, he was able make a mortar box from an old water heater sheet metal wrapping and some oak timbers. Davey and I became experts at mixing and handling cement. Our dad formed and poured sidewalks, a wading pool, figured out how to make culverts, a catch basin and stone retaining walls. Many are still in place more than 60 years later. – Rick Keillor

The End

Bob’s end came suddenly on September 5, 1971. It was a Sunday night after a gospel meeting at “The Brook”. Bob was standing talking to his sister Josephine and several others when he collapsed and fell to the floor. Someone administered CPR, but it was to no avail. Bob was dead at 62. The cause of Bob’s death was never determined — my mother opted against an autopsy. There were, however, three factors that likely contributed. Bob had a leaky heart valve and was scheduled for surgery in a couple of weeks. 

He was also under a lot of pressure. A major concern was how to best deal with a son going through difficult times. Another was the extreme criticism he was getting from friends and relatives for letting his son live at home. Their advice was to kick him out of the house and be done with him. Bob’s answer was, “As long as he is at home, there will be some level of father-son communication.” Bob’s approach was posthumously proven to be correct — and I respect him for it.

Bob left my mother with no life insurance and no savings. Not even enough for a funeral. My brothers and I paid for the funeral. Fortunately, my mother had learned to drive, had a car, and a full-time job. Bob had encouraged her to take these steps. Was this his way of providing a form of “life insurance”? In the end, Bob left her penniless and angry. But she had insured her own future with a good, full-time job — a job she held until her mid-80s. – Dave Keillor