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for family
Author Jamie Walker remembers a lifetime
of summers on Wrightsville Beach with the
Keeley clan ... and one very special birthday.
remember when
A time & place
After almost 60 years of summers
spent on Wrightsville Beach, the sprawling Keeley
family once again came together last July for their
annual reunion. Being in a room with the Keeley fam-ily
can be a bit overwhelming. Betsy, Bobby, Mary
Ellen, Ann, Tom, Pam, John, Kathy, Paula, Dan, David, Mark, Chris,
Richard and Nina (nicknamed “little Nina”) … there are 15 Keeley
children, and it doesn’t stop there. There are 14 spouses and more than
30 grandchildren, five of whom have spouses and children.
Watching the astute family patriarch, my great-uncle Bob Keeley,
entertain the more than 100 (!) family members present at his 89th
birthday party, in the vast sound-front living room, belting out verse
after verse of St. James Infirmary Blues, I was reminded that there was
something very special about the Keeleys and their connection to
Wrightsville.
Uncle Bob had one condition when he proposed to my Great-Aunt
Nina Braddock, the calm family matriarch, back in 1948: He wanted
11 children. Nina had her own condition: She wanted 12. “The last
three were just a bonus,” Nina says in retrospect. They were married in
March 1949 and settled in Roanoke, Virginia. The following year, with
their first child, Betsy, in tow, was their first year at Wrightsville.
They stayed with Nina’s sister, Polly (my grandmother) and her
husband, Dan “Doctor,” who was doing his residency at the Babies
Hospital (Uncle Bob was a cardio-thoracic surgeon for most of his
adult life). Polly and Dan were renting an apartment from Paul and
Ethel Hines on Harbor Island. Aunt Nina says there was a charm about
the place that couldn’t be denied. “You couldn’t help but fall in love
with it,” she says. “But, it was the people, too. Paul and Ethel were like
family.” Paul Hines — later “Papa” to us children — was a shrimper, a
fisherman and quite a character.
When it came to fishing, Papa, Doctor and Uncle Bob’s boat was
Top: Keeley girls playing in the sand.
Middle: Uncle Bob and Doctor preparing
for the big kite race. Bottom: Keeley family
feasting on watermelon.
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