Mary Paxton Keeley's YMCA Diary

C0848 - Keeley at YMCA Canteen

Independence, Missouri born Mary Paxton Keeley was the first female graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism. She was active as a journalist, teacher, playwright, poet, fiction writer, photographer, and pioneer in the field of journalism. During her lifetime Keeley befriended many celebrated Missourians, including Bess and Harry Truman, Orrick Johns, Homer Croy, Charles G. Ross, Tom McAfee, and Rose Wilder Lane.

Between 1918 and 1919, Keeley served with the YMCA in France during World War I.  As a canteen worker, she distributed food, drinks, books and periodicals to soldiers to help maintain morale. The Mary Paxton Keeley Collection from the State Historical Society of Missouri, contains the diary Keeley kept during her time in France. Filled with wit, the 100 page diary provides a first hand account of Keeley's experiences as a YMCA canteen worker and will be digitized by Over There staff this year.

Mary Gentry Paxton Keeley was born on June 2, 1886 in Independence, Missouri, to John
Gallatin Paxton and Mary Neil Gentry. She attended the University of Missouri, where she graduated in 1910 as the first female graduate of the School of Journalism.  Immediately after graduation she began working for the Kansas City Post, then in 1918, Keeley decided to join the war effort.

In an interview in 1976, Keeley described her decision to join the YMCA:

"I made up my mind to go to war. My family had always gone to wars. Two of my brothers couldn't go, they were married and had children, but one did. But they had a rule that you couldn't go too, if you had a father or a brother in the war. So, I said, "Well, I know I'm going." So, I went down to see a man I knew who was in charge of recruiting YMCA women canteen workers. He said, "You get ready to go and I think something will happen to change the rule."

So, they called me to Richmond, Virginia--and this probably doesn't belong in this at all--but the elegant Virginia ladies said, "Miss Paxton has been recommended by Miss Ella Agnew, and her grandfather was General Paxton, killed at Chancellorsville; her maternal ancestors are from Virginia," and then nobody said anything so, I said to these ladies, "Would you like to know why I think I ought to go to France?" And they said, "Yes," and I told them. They paused and I said, "Well, do you think I ought to know why I'm capable of going?"

"Yes." So I told them. And then they said they didn't need to talk to me anymore.

Right then the rule was changed about going. But I had looked down and the only four-leaf clover I ever saw in my life I found about that time. So I went over."

In July 1917 the United States branch of the YMCA opened its service to females for the first time, and like many women, Keeley stepped up to the challenge. The designated role of the YMCA during the war, as ordered by General John J. Pershing,  was to 'provide amusement and moral welfare to the soldiers.'  YMCA service took place in tents or small buildings dubbed "huts" or "canteens." These buildings were turned into clubs, theaters, gyms, post office, and general stores for the soldiers. Workers often served coffee, doughnuts, and gave out books to the soldiers to read.

In the following pages, Keeley discusses interacting with soldiers, YMCA work, and her perceptions of the French Ft. Saint Menge.

Upon her return from the war, she married Edmund Burke Keeley and they settled in Virginia. Their only child, John Gallatin Paxton Keeley, was born in 1921. After her husband’s death in 1928, Keeley returned to the University of Missouri to attend graduate school, where she completed a master’s degree in journalism in 1928. That same year, she published River Gold, a children’s book. In 1929 she became the journalism instructor at Columbia College, where she also taught creative writing and wrote and published several plays. Although she retired from teaching in 1952, Keeley continued to write articles for the Kansas City Star. Mary Paxton Keeley died on December 6, 1986, at 100 years of age. In 2002, Columbia Public Schools dedicated the Mary Paxton Keeley Elementary School in her honor.

Sources and suggestions for further reading:

Blanchard, Ralph. History of the YMCA in World War I. The Doughboy Center.

Gavin, Lettie. American Women in World War I: They Also Served. Niwot, Colo.: University of Colorado Press, 1997.

Keeley, Mary Paxton (1886-1986), Papers, 1830-1983 (C0848). The State Historical Society of Missouri.

Mary Paxton Keeley. Historic Missourians. The State Historical Society of Missouri.

Oral History Interview with Mary Paxton Keeley. Harry S. Truman Library and Museum.

Taft, William H. “Establishing the School of Journalism.” Missouri Historical Review. v. 84, no. 1 (October 1989), pp. 63-83.

The Women's Troop Train Service - Railroad Y.M.C.A., St. Louis, Missouri. Missouri Over There.