MADGE KEEPIN, longtime resident of Los Alamos, New Mexico, passed on, at the age of 92, peacefully in Seattle, Washington September 29,2019 at the Columbia Lutheran Home. She was buried with her deceased husband, George Robert Keepin, Jr. “Bob”, in a private ceremony on October 21, 2019 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Born in 1927 as the middle child to Hilda and Jeremiah Twomey, Madge grew up in Andover, Massachusetts with two siblings, Gerard Twomey and Mavis Twomey Cox, both of whom she outlived. She graduated from Andover’s Abbot Academy and went on to complete nearly four years of college at Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, studying psychology and sociology. Madge met her future husband, “Bob”, at age 16 on April 16,1944 when Bob was in the Navy’s officer training program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The couple was married June 13,1948 in Chicago, Illinois, spent early married years in Evanston Illinois, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, before eventually settling in Los Alamos, New Mexico in 1952.
Madge’s children remember her as a woman of ultimate integrity, radiant spirit, deep sense of social justice, keen intelligence, witty and free sense of humor who loved her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. They also recall her fondness for opera, international travel, foreign languages, history, good food (especially New Mexican dishes), keeping abreast of modern politics as viewed through her “liberal” lens and staying fit through walking and jogging and hiking and skiing with friends. The two years (1963-1965) she lived in Vienna, Austria as the wife of an international scientist, and mother of five children, then ages 6-14, were years which she always recalled fondly and years which demonstrated her grit, adaptability, sense of adventure, and determination to make the most of her world.
Madge is survived by her five children: Trey Keepin, Will Keepin and wife Cynthia Brix, Ardis Davis and husband Scott, Mavis Keepin, and Denice Keepin and husband Marcus Gramps; her grandchildren: Isaiah Keepin and wife Meghan, Naomi Kro and wife Mia, Mikaela Elder and husband Caleb, Jennifer Davis, Kimber Davis, Alexandra Gramps and husband Danny Walker, Adrian Gramps, Andrea Gramps; and her twelve great-grandchildren, Valliant, Elijah, Renzo, Orion and Asher Keepin; Mikaela and Jay Lee Kro, Kash and Knox Batterman, Rowan Walker, Arden and Marion Elder.