The DNA Project 

 

 

 

Before and during World War II, Ada Floyd Keep joined the Red Cross. Women were encouraged to volunteer for the Red Cross as part of the war effort. Starting in 1939, prior to America’s entry into the war, Ada worked as an ambulance driver. She worked her way up to the rank of Captain in the New York City, Kings County Chapter of the American Red Cross.

Captain Ada Keep was director of all the ambulance service for Brooklyn. She was affiliated with Kings County Medical Center in East Flatbush Brooklyn, one of the country’s largest municipal hospitals seeing extensive civilian trauma. It later became the very first Level 1 Trauma Center in the United States, so that police officers said that if they were shot, they wanted to be taken by ambulance to the Kings County Medical Center to get the best trauma care.

After the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, the Red Cross quickly mobilized. Its 1905 congressional charter required it to "furnish volunteer aid to the sick and wounded of armies in time of war" and to "act in matters of voluntary relief and in accord with the military and naval authorities as a medium of communication between the people of the United States of America and their Army and Navy."

 

At home, millions of Red Cross volunteers provided aid to members of the armed forces and their families, served in hospitals suffering from severe shortages of medical staff, produced emergency supplies for war victims, collected scrap, ran victory gardens, and maintained training programs in home nutrition, first aid, and water safety. Overseas, Red Cross workers provided compassionate support for the troops they accompanied, and were attached to military hospitals, hospital ships, and hospital trains.

 

Ada Floyd Keep did not want to leave the Red Cross, a calling she enthusiastically enjoyed. Her son Charles Russell Keep, Jr. recalls Ada and her compatriots were very upset that she was duty bound to go with her husband to Coconut Grove, Florida and leave behind her important work with the Red Cross.

 

In 1942, she moved to Florida to be with her husband where they remained for the duration of the war. Their son, Charles Russell Keep, Jr. was enrolled in boarding school at St. Andrew’s School in Middletown, Delaware. He spent summers with his parents in Coconut Grove. Ada found work in an electronics factory as part of the war effort.  The factory was located near Miami, perhaps near Coral Gables, to her son’s recollection. Her factory won a “E” for excellence Army Navy Award.

The E-award was the Army-Navy Award for Excellence in War Production. An E-award was given to a company and its employees, if they produced an extraordinary large number of war materials or filled their production remarkably ahead of schedule. The awards were given as a pin with a card certifying the contribution to the war effort with a message from the president. Individual certificates were given to each employee and flags were given to the company.

Military personnel would visit the factory and make the presentations in an official ceremony. Group photographs were taken of all the employees. Ada’s son C. Russell Keep, Jr. recalls that there was such a photograph, though at this time it has not been located. Employees were very proud of their E-awards and it represented a great honor to the company and its employees to so support the war effort. Ada’s son recalls that Ada was personally very proud of her contribution to winning the war.

 

The E-Award was a sterling silver pin with enamel red white and blue stripes evocative of the American flag, upon each side of a laurel wreath of victory around the capital letter E for excellence. Ada Floyd Keep served in the only ways that most women could in the World War II era, not in combat, but as Captain Ada Keep of the Red Cross and as a “soldier without a gun” working in an electronics factory.

Upon returning to civilian life in 1945, Mr. Keep resumed work as vice - president of The Pacific Fire Insurance Company of New York, and Mrs. Keep returned to domestic life. Russ and Ada moved in 1946 to Huntington, Long Island, New York.

Their son C. Russell Keep, Jr. was called up to serve in the Korean conflict. A spot on his physical examination chest X-ray disqualified him for service and so he was released from the draft. In the mid-1960s Ada and Russ Sr. moved to Sea Pines Plantation, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. They had frequent visits from their son, his wife Nancy Garland (Stotz) Keep and grandchildren.

 

One of those grandchildren, Charles Russell Keep, III, Esq. (3239*) served in the U.S. Marine Corp as Captain. Captain Keep served for 4 years as a law officer stationed in the US and Japan. Another grandson, Christopher Allen Keep (3240) served as a 3^rd mate in the United States Merchant Marine.

 

Charles Russell Keep, Sr. died at the age of 78 on 9 December 1974 and is buried on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina at Six Oaks Cemetery. Ada remained on Hilton Head until the mid-1980s when she moved to the home of her son and family in Solebury, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Ada died at the age of 84 on 11 April 1986 and is buried at Trinity Episcopal Church, Solebury, Pennsylvania.

Bibliography:

Flying Officers of the US Navy

Naval Aviation War Book Committee

Assistant Secretary of the Navy

Washington, D.C., August 28, 1919

 

John Keep of Longmeadow, Massachusetts

1660-1676 and his Descendants,

Frank E. Best, 1899

 

Descendants of John Keep of Longmeadow.

Keep Family Society, 1994

http://www.redcross.org/museum/history/ww2a.asp

 

http://fcit.usf.edu/florida/lessons/ww_ii/ww_ii1.htm

 

Hartford in 1912. Story of the Capital City

The Hartford Post, Connecticut, 1912

 

History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography, Volume IV,

By Thomas McAdory Owens

The S.J.Clarke Publishing Company, Chicago, 1921

 

Compiled by Marcus Floyd Keep (3241*)  © 2012

_________

 

 

 A Severely Injured Soldier 

“How it started: 

 

“I sat looking at him, a man in his sixties, with cigarette ash lying on his waistcoat like drifting snow.

 

“He had no eyes.

 

“But there was a mark between his eyes.  Was this where the bullet entered?  If so, how did he survive?  How do you lose your eyes in war but not your life?  These were questions of a young boy.  I was looking at a Great War veteran for the first time.  He lived in a flat just off the Caledonian Road, Islington, North London, not far from where I was born.

 

“That childhood memory from the 1950s stayed with me above others, creating an embryo of fascination for a generation that endured such scars.

 

“Uncle Babs, as he was known, was my great great uncle on my mother’s side.  His real name was Alfred James Keep, and he enlisted as a regular soldier in 1905 with the Middlesex Regiment.  When war was declared in 1914, he joined the 4th Battalion.  He fought on the Western Front from September 1914 until October 1915 when he was blinded by shell fire whilst fighting at Hooge near Ypres.

 

“I was told some years later by my Great Aunt Polly that she and her sisters met him on his return, his head completely bandaged.  Many tears were shed that day.

 

"He was admitted to St Dunstan’s Hospital for blinded servicemen and learnt a trade as a boot repairer and mat maker.  He was good humoured, with a sense of mischief.  He’d get the kids to use soldiers’ language and laugh at the outcome.  He died at St Dunstan’s, Brighton in August 1964 at the age of 77.”

 

The photograph and details were taken from Great War Portraits, a book of photographs by Keith Collman, which marks the passing of the WW1 generation.  More information can be found on his website at http://www.greatwarportraits.com. Keith was related to the Enfield Keeps, and his great grandmother was Amelia Keep, sister of Frederick George and Alfred James Keep, featured above.  Keith has kindly allowed us to reproduce this moving account of Alfred, which is contained in the book.

 

Founded in 1915 by Arthur Pearson, St Dunstan's is a registered UK charity which provides lifelong support, rehabilitation, and respite care to blind British ex-servicemen and women who have lost their sight through war, age, accident or illness.  It allows them to lead productive lives by regaining their independence and the confidence and ability to meet new challenges.  St Dunstan's national centre is at Ovingdean near Brighton, East Sussex, England, and they have two other regional centres at Sheffield, Yorkshire, and Llandudno, North Wales.