July 28, 1925 – May 15, 2012
Florence G. Keenom, 86, of Portland, formerly of Sweet Home, died May 15, 2012.
She was born July 28, 1925 in Kansas City, Mo. to Jesse Augustus and Mary Ethel (Johnson) Barr. At less than 2 years of age she moved with her family to San Mateo, Calif.
In her high school years they resettled in Sweet Home, where her father raised registered polled Hereford cattle. She spent a few years on the ranch before moving to Portland, Oregon where she became a nurse in the Nurse Cadet Corps. She was working at Emmanuel Hospital where she met her soon-to-be husband, William Earl Keenom, in 1945, who had moved to the Vancouver, Wash. area from Waxahachie, Texas to work as a shipbuilder. They were married in 1946 and adopted four children between 1951 and 1959.
The family looked a bit like a United Nations assembly due to the many nationalities represented. Mr. Keenom, who owned his first dump truck at age 13, collected enough excavating equipment to run his own construction company from the 1950s through the late ’60s, when blindness caused by his diabetes caused him to retire. Mrs. Keenom was his always-faithful business partner, who handled all the scheduling and raised the four children, who were beset with many health problems. Her nursing background came into play on a regular basis. Throughout all the challenges presented by both the business and her children, she managed the whole situation with a great attitude and often sacrificing her own well-being to put husband and children first.
The Keenoms and their youngest two children retired to Guadalajara, Mexico, where Mr. Keenom died in 1974. Coming from Texas, he enjoyed the sunshine of Mexico. There is a plaque made in his honor and placed near where he used to sit and converse with the other residents of the trailer home park where they resided. When he died he was buried in Waxahachie in the Town Hall cemetery.
Mrs. Keenom then moved with her two children to Santa Barbara, where she again worked in the nursing field while putting the children through school. She also did volunteer work for The Salvation Army, an organization whose goals she believed in very much. Her daughter Sue went on to work daily in the office of Oregon’s Sen. Gordon Smith. After the two youngest children left home, she moved back to Vancouver and Portland, where she lived until her passing.
She will be missed by many friends and her children who all loved her very much.
Private burial took place at Crawfordsville Union Cemetery.
The Sweet Home Funeral Chapel is handling the arrangements.