Veona Keller

A private family graveside service was conducted for Veona Keller, 95, who passed on Dec. 28, after experiencing a Christmas Eve fall that broke her hip.

Veona was the fourth child of James Gradie Hollandsworth and Stella Bryan (Wilkes) Hollandsworth. Their first, a son named JT, died at eight months in 1920 as a result of the Spanish flu pandemic. Veona's oldest sister, Edna Marie Pruitt Cantrell, passed in 2012 at the age of 90. Her sister, Minnie Odell Shiffer, was four months shy of 100 when she passed in 2023.

Born in Sidney, Arkansas, young Veona and her family migrated west during the Dust Bowl, with multiple stops enroute to California, then north to Washington state, then back to southern California. She graduated from Huntington Park High School in 1946, the same year she married Herbert Keller.

When Dad enlisted in the Army later that year, they moved to Fort Knox, Tennessee, for his training and service and they made lifelong friends with other young military couples. After honorable discharge, they moved back to southern California.

They established their home in Bellflower and produced three children before moving to Chico in 1956. Fourteen months later, they moved to the Bakersfield home they shared until Dad's passing in 2004.

Mom was part of a long line of strong women. During World War II, her father fell from the second floor of a large building he was working on; he broke a hip and was hospitalized for a year, but it never healed and he never was mobile again. Her mother took a factory job. Mom began working in a five-and-dime while in high school, and was really upset to discover that her high school diploma had not improved her employability. Thus, she insisted that her children take high school business courses so they would graduate with marketable skills.

Like Grandpa, Dad became disabled. When their first child began kindergarten, Mom went to beauty school and became a licensed beautician. And she did that for a long while. But she wanted to be an at-home mom for her kids � something that her own mother couldn't do for her � so she and dad lived very frugally during their child-raising years. When the firstborn went to college, Mom went to Bakersfield College for business courses and then worked 10 years as a secretary at Kern County Human Services.

She retired to spend as much time as she could with our Dad.

Mom was most passionate about her family, both immediate and extended. Her mother had worried that "the cousins wouldn't know each other," so Mom, her sisters and the husbands established annual camping reunions, an event that lasted many years. In 1980 she and Dad welcomed a grandson who brought great joy to their lives.

She and her sisters were very close; she and Minnie spoke daily up until Minnie's death. And she adored her eight nieces and nephews, and all of the offspring they produced.

In October 2014, she moved into independent living at Brookdale; last July, she transferred to Brookdale's assisted living. We are very grateful for the companionship and caregiving Mom received at Brookdale.

Survivors are her daughter Patti Keller (Ed) Butler and sons Wayne (Linda) Keller and Larry (Joann) Keller; her grandson, Gary (Laurie) Keller; and her great-grandson, Christopher Keller; and her great-granddaughter, Marissa Keller.

Interment was at Greenlawn Northeast Cemetery, Bakersfield. The Rev. Dr. Angelo Frazier officiated.