Richard (Rick) Isaac Keeler died at his home in Palm Beach, Fla., on Wednesday, July 7. He was 88.
Mr. Keeler, who lived on Martha’s Vineyard from 1953 to 1957 and owned land at Watcha, was a founding incorporator of the Dukes County Savings Bank, now the Martha’s Vineyard Savings Bank. When he moved off-Island in 1957, he gifted his family’s grandfather clock to the bank, and it is now a centerpiece in the lobby of the Edgartown branch.
Mr. Keeler was a longtime member of the Edgartown Yacht Club, a founding member of the Chappaquiddick Beach Club and a past member of the Reading Room in Edgartown.
A lifelong lover of the sea with a passion for sailing, power boating and fishing, Mr. Keeler spent many years, starting in his adolescence, boating in New England waters, especially Vineyard Sound. In his later years, he navigated the waters off the East Coast of Florida.
“Dad loved his wife, Deb; his cats, especially Maxine, and the Vineyard, where he spent a lot of time on Pohogonot Farm in Edgartown during the 1950s and 1960s while married to his first wife, Dorothy Flynn Chaffee,” his daughter Wendy Keeler said. “He loved everything to do with the stock market and devoured the financial pages for years. He had an astute business sense.”
A private investor throughout his career, Mr. Keeler was the principal of the Boston-based venture capital firm, Rainbow Ventures, in the 1980s and 1990s.
The son of Isaac P. and Anna T. Keeler, Mr. Keeler was born in East Orange, N.J., on June 9, 1928.
He attended St. Bernard’s School in New York city and graduated in 1946 from Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, N.H. After starting his postsecondary education at Amherst College in Amherst, he transferred to the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where he was a member of Zeta Psi fraternity and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1952.
He was predeceased by a brother, Robert F. Keeler, who died in World War II, and by a sister, Helen K. Schulten of North Branford, Conn., who died in 2012.
He is survived by his wife of 28 years, Debra D. Keeler of Palm Beach, Fla. He is also survived by his three children: son R. Bradbury Keeler of Wayland, Mass., and two daughters, Wendy P. Keeler of Cape Elizabeth, Me. and Elizabeth K. Millan of Needham; and eight grandchildren: George G. Keeler of Brooklyn, N.Y.; Christopher B. Keeler of Telluride, Colo.; John K. Queeney of Mountain View, Calif.; Seth R. Queeney of Boston; Harrison C. Queeney of Cape Elizabeth, Me.; Danielle L. Millan of Quincy; Jennifer K. Millan of Burlington, Vt.; and Tyler K. Millan of Needham.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Mystic Seaport, 75 Greenmanville Ave., Mystic, Conn. 06355, or to Phillips Exeter Academy, 20 Main St., Exeter, N.H. 03833.
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