Dr. Kenneth Keller
Remembering Dr. Kenneth Keller
Dr. Kenneth W. Keller, 78, passed away on January 9, 2022, at the University of Virginia Hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia. He was born October 29, 1943, in St. Louis, Missouri, and was the son of the late Walter Keller and Helen Firn Keller.
Officers and members of the Augusta County Historical Society board remember Ken as a longtime colleague, past president, and former society archivist. Ken was a member of the society from the time he came to Staunton in 1981 to join the history department at Mary Baldwin College.
A St. Louis native, Ken graduated from Washington University with his BA in history. As a scholarship student, he attended Yale University where he graduated in 1971 with his M.Phil. and Ph.D. with a focus on American colonial history.
On their first date he told his future wife that “the only thing I ever wanted to do was teach American History”; and teach it he did. Dr. Keller taught history for eleven years at Ohio University and Ohio State University and for thirty years at Mary Baldwin College, offering courses in all areas of American History with specialized courses in Women’s History, Lewis and Clark, and History of the American West. He published over forty journal and encyclopedia articles and reviews as well as book chapters and articles focused on western Virginia. He also won a substantial grant from the U.S. Department of Education for a 3-year program for public school teachers in the Shenandoah Valley: “Teaching American History: Decisive Events.”
Ken had a special interest in the social history of the Shenandoah Valley, its religious communities, and its German and Scots-Irish settlers. In his long career at Mary Baldwin, Ken served many years as chair of the history department, and developed and introduced courses in Native Americans and in women’s history.
He published many articles on his research in a wide range of books and journals, including the Society’s Augusta Historical Bulletin. To the delight of all, he presented a number of ACHS programs on those topics. Perhaps the most memorable body of Valley research that he was known for was his work on the Valley Turnpike (today U.S. Rt. 11), an historic road referred to as “The best thoroughfare in the South.”
He also delved deeply into the history of decorative Moravian tiles known as Mercer tiles. The handmade tiles were a product of the Moravian Pottery & Tile Works in Bucks County, Pa. Henry Chapman Mercer founded the company in the early 20th century and the decorative tiles produced at his establishment are found in several buildings in our area that feature architecture from the Arts and Crafts movement.
From his first arrival in Staunton, Ken became a part of the Society’s inner circle as a long-standing board member and then as president in 2004 and 2005. When he retired in 2011, he accepted the role of archivist of the ACHS, following in the footsteps of other distinguished Society archivists such as Richard M. Hamrick, Jr. He served as archivist until 2019.
Ken worked closely with the ACHS archives committee in its massive ongoing project of cataloging the collections. His annual reports in the Bulletin are a testimony to the progress of that committee’s work and to the richness of the collections.
In 2019, the Society presented Ken with its highest honor, the Distinguished History Service Award. We are grateful for Ken’s service to the Society, to Mary Baldwin, and to the larger history community. We regret the loss of a respected colleague, and we extend our condolences to his wife, Dr. Susan Green.
Dr. Keller loved gardening, and he and his wife spent many summers traveling through the American West, visiting tribal reservations and historical sites along the way. Trips also included visits to relatives and friends in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Missouri, and California.
Dr. Keller is survived by his wife of twenty-six years, Dr. Susan Blair Green, and by his stepson, Seth D. Green, as well as by his extended family and friends. He was much loved as a gentle, kind, and generous man who never lost his love of learning. He is deeply mourned and missed by those who knew him best.