Marjorie Ann Brotherton Keeling

Obituary

Marjorie Ann Brotherton Keeling (December 1937 – July 2026)

Marjorie Brotherton Keeling, always called Margie, passed away after a few months’ illness. She was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, in 1937, delivered by Dr. Walker, who also had delivered her eventual husband Keith Keeling a year and a half earlier. She was the third daughter of William Carthel Brotherton and Ethel Allen Brotherton, both of Muskogee, who had twin girls fifteen years older than she. As a result, Margie said that she always felt like she had three mothers. She attended Irving Elementary School, Alice Robertson Junior High School, and Muskogee Central High School (class of 1955), and studied in 1960-61 at the University of Pennsylvania. She enthusiastically participated in the Methodist Youth Fellowship of First Methodist Church of Muskogee while she was in high school, serving as president her senior year. That was where she met her future husband, Keith. Their relationship deepened when she accompanied him to small rural Methodist churches he served in the area around Muskogee while he was in college, where she played hymns on the piano at the services he conducted. They married in 1957 and enjoyed nearly 69 years of marriage together, living in Dallas, TX; Chicago, IL; Sioux Falls, SD; Rockford, IL; Baldwin City, KS; Fayette, MO; and Tampa, FL. They had two children, Kara and Kent. Margie was primarily a homemaker and mother, though she also worked outside the home: for Metropolitan Life Insurance in Muskogee and Dallas for five years, for Gallup Poll and a daycare center in Muskogee while her children were young, and for the department store Bergner’s in Rockford, Illinois once they were older. When her husband moved into university administration, Margie supported him as the chief hospitality provider for the Vice President’s Office at Baker University and Central Methodist University.

Margie was musical: she participated in chorus in high school and chancel choirs in Methodist churches for much of her life. She played piano skillfully, entirely by ear, but she could play any hymn that she knew as well as many popular songs. She loved any chance to hear symphony orchestras and avidly attended concerts whenever possible. Flowers, plants, and trees were her big love: she gardened all her life, a trait she shared with her mother and her sister Mary. People stopped on the highway to see her spectacular display of mums in the fall, as well as the Christmas lights and decorations that she and Keith put up annually.

Margie was also civic minded: she worked on Friends of the Library committees for the town libraries in Baldwin City, Kansas, and Fayette, Missouri. She was a vital participant on many church committees in both towns, organizing fundraising efforts for church missions and projects. An enthusiastic art lover, she volunteered as a docent at the Ashby-Hodge Gallery of American Art at Central Methodist University in Fayette. She was a long-time member of P.E.O. in both Baldwin City and Fayette: she deeply loved her P.E.O. sisters.

Margie was preceded in death by her parents, her sisters Mary Brotherton Mann and Gladys Brotherton Burgin, and her son-in-law Scott Pollard. She is survived by her husband Keith Keeling of Tampa, FL; her daughter Kara Keeling of Ashland, OR; her son Kent Keeling and daughter-in-law Marie-Claude Laplante of Tampa, FL; her nephew Tommy Mann and his wife Annette, of Muskogee, OK; her niece Joy Hughes and her husband Terry, of Black Mountain, NC; her nephew John Burgin, of Black Mountain, NC; her brother-in-law Bryant Keeling and his wife Sharon, of Macomb, IL; and her niece Sharon Wilson and her husband Richard, of Mt. Prospect, IL; as well as numerous great nieces and nephews. She was an enormously kind, generous, warm-hearted, and loving wife and mother who is greatly missed by all who loved her.

A memorial service will be held at a later date in Fayette. Memorials may be made to the Ashby-Hodge Gallery of American Art at Central Methodist University, 411 Central Methodist Square, or to Linn Memorial United Methodist Church, 409 N Church Street, both in Fayette, MO 65248.