Horace Keesey III
York - Horace Keesey III, age 90, of Spring Garden Township, died peacefully in his sleep at 1:45 P.M., Monday, February 25, 2019. He was married for 40 years to the late Kathryn Louise Hamme Keesey, who died in 1995.
Born October 22, 1928, in York, he was the oldest child of the late Horace Keesey Jr. and the late Mary Dalrymple Schmidt Keesey. He was one of five Horace Keeseys: all were relatives, none had a middle name, and one was an older cousin.
Mr. Keesey attended York Collegiate Institute and Deerfield Academy and graduated from The Gilman School and from Lafayette College, with a degree in Engineering.
Mr. Keesey spent most of his life in the paper business, beginning with a summer job in 1945, at age 16, at the Schmidt & Ault Paper Company on King's Mill Road. John C. Schmidt (Mr. Keesey's grandfather) and Robert Ault purchased the old King Mill in 1897. Henry D. Schmidt (Mr. Keesey's uncle) took over the business in 1924 and began transitioning the mill from producing paper made from rags and wood pulp to recycling paper in 1929. Schmidt & Ault was purchased first by St Regis Paper Company, second by Champion International, and finally by Smurfit-Stone Container Corporation. Mr. Keesey retired in 1993 as Vice President of Production and Sales for Smurfit- Stone Container Corporation.
In 1964, Mr. Keesey and four friends -- Jake Barnhart, Albert G. Blakey, Irvin S. Naylor, and W.F.O. Rosenmiller -- started Ski Roundtop. The company grew to include other ski areas. He remained on the Board of Directors until the ski company was sold in the fall of 2018.
He served on the Board of Directors of The York Water Company, including in the position of Chairman of the Board. He was a member of St. John Episcopal Church, the Country Club of York, the Rotary Club of York, and the former Lafayette Club. He was also actively involved in SCORE after his retirement.
Mr. Keesey was an avid outdoorsman and enjoyed lacrosse, wrestling, ice hockey, skiing, tennis, golf and bird hunting. He enjoyed his dogs and took credit for his wife Kathy's training of them. Mr. Keesey thought no one noticed when he and his dog Charlie, or later, his dog Max, tried to sneak across the fairways at the neighboring Country Club of York. He did not like cats until Charlotte wandered into his backyard and stayed for the next 19 years. He told everyone he was training her too, but all of his friends noticed who was really in charge.
Mr. Keesey is survived by his four children: Horace Keesey IV of Winooski, Vermont; Sallie Hamme Keesey Francis, and her husband Steve, of York; Mark Latimer Keesey, and his wife Julia, of York; and Alice Virginia Keesey deBergen, and her husband Christophe, of Versaille, France. He is also survived by his three grandchildren: Benjamin deBergen, Anna deBergen, and Maxfield Francis; his brother, James Carson Keesey of Salem, Oregon; and his sister, Mary Keesey Pelletier of Port Angeles, Washington.
Funeral services are scheduled for 11:00 A.M. Saturday, March 9, 2019, at St. John Episcopal Church,140 North Beaver Street, York, with the Reverend Canon David W. Lovelace officiating. Private burial will be in Prospect Hill Cemetery. Kuhner Associates Funeral Directors, Inc., 863 South George Street, York, is in charge of arrangements.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Rotary Club of York, SCORE, or Parkinson's Foundation.
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