Connecticut's 9/11 Living Memorial
Marsh & McLennan September 11th Memorial
Boston Public Garden 9/11 Memorial
Conseleya 9/11 Memorial
Dewitt 9/11 Memorial
Montclair State University 9/11 Memorial
East Newark 9/11 Memorial
Fair Haven 9/11 Memorial
Freehold Township 9/11 Living Memorial Tree Grove
Born in Boston, and raised in Pittsfield, MA, Dick was the eldest of eight children. He graduated from St. Anselm College, then worked for Travelers Insurance Company in Boston, MA. Since his draft lottery number was fifteen, he went to Marine Officer's Candidate School. He served at Camp Pendleton in California and in Iwakuni, Japan where he served as a courier to Viet Nam, and provided drug counseling for Marines prior to returning to the United States.
Dick and Judy (Murphy) Keane were married prior to OCS and had two children, Sean and Timothy, before Dick's discharge from the Marines. On return to the States, Dick attended Springfield College, where he received an MEd in Rehabilitation Counseling. For the next two years he was director of a program for the Retarded and Handicapped, then he returned to the Traveler's Insurance Company until 1994, when he joined Marsh McLennan Company. During these years, Dick also received an MBA from the University of Hartford, and three more sons were born, Daniel, Patrick and Matthew. Dick enjoyed spending time with all five of his boys, coaching baseball, soccer, and basketball, and spending time watching their sporting and scholastic activities. Dick's unique style of coaching included choosing teams based on compatible personalities rather than skill, and Dick made sure that all players had equal playing time. This meant that the teams rarely finished first, but they truly enjoyed playing the games.
Dick relished the time that he could spend in the garden, raising vegetables, building rock walls and tending the lawn and flowers. In the last few years he installed a naturalized fish pond, complete with plantings and fountain. He enjoyed entertaining friends and family, cooking and woodworking, and was an avid reader. Grandchildren Conor and Mckenzie were the joy of his life, as were his daughter-in-laws, Colleen and Heather. He spent many hours playing with his grandchildren in the yard, on the swing, on the bike or in the pool. A devout Catholic, Dick sang with the church choir, visited the sick of the parish, was a Eucharistic Minister and drove a group of blind women to church each week. Most would agree that Dick's sense of humor, his smile and his friendly "hello" were his signature. He would go out of his way to cheer someone who was having a difficult day, and always made a point of asking how everyone's family was. Dick was tragically lost in the World Trade Center terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, along with 291 other Marsh employees who were on the 99th and 100th floor of Tower I.
New York Times Portraits of Grief
Here are pictures of Richard M. Keane: a man in exceptionally grubby clothes tending his garden while a boom box blasted out Orbison or Puccini; coming home from a business trip and telling his wife, Judy Keane, about the man he met on a plane; riding the commuter bus from his home off the village green of Wethersfield, Conn., to the Marsh & McLennan office in Hartford. (Mr. Keane, a senior vice president, was making a rare trip to Marsh's World Trade Center office for a meeting on Sept. 11.)
Mr. Keane, who exuded friendliness, loved to collect stories about people on his constant business travels. He believed in public transportation as a public good. He loved to garden, bringing to life 80 tomato plants this year and growing Connecticut field pumpkins every fall for the children in his extended family. "Dick was always trying to foist vegetables off on people," Mrs. Keane said.
And his life was done to music. "If I ask him to put up a picture for me, he can't do that until the music is going," she said. He was not the greatest singer, but sang in the choir of Sacred Heart Church, where he would shuttle several blind women on most Sundays.
A brother-in-law, Dr. Thomas C. Dolan, remembers Mr. Keane's constant coaching as father of five sons, the marathons he started at age 40, the communal house paintings every year. "The glass of water was always half-full for this guy," Dr. Dolan said.
Add new Guest Book entry