Lynn McKeever

Lynn "Yael" McKeever

Lynn "Yael" McKeever slipped away from us on October 4, 2024. Born to Lewis and Dixie McKeever in Dubuque, Iowa on April 22, 1947, Lynn had a happy childhood and a good Catholic education in Iowa.

In the tumultuous 1960s, scholarships brought her to Chicago, where she graduated from the University of Chicago in 1971. She worked as a newspaper journalist in high school, throughout college and thereafter, returning to Iowa to attend law school. Upon graduation, she moved to New Mexico where she was admitted to the bar in 1984. She had a long solo legal practice as an estate planning and small business attorney. She retired from practice in 2019.

She fell in love with her lifelong partner, Rabbi Deborah J. Brin, in 1992 and they set up housekeeping. In 2001, after years of study and living a Jewish life, Lynn was ceremonially received by the Jewish people and adopted the Hebrew name "Yael". Yael loved to welcome guests from near and far. Cooking for and entertaining others was a passion. Yael and Deborah were legally married shortly after New Mexico allowed it.

Yael is survived by Deborah and Deborah's extended family, her chosen son Noah, daughter-in-law Misty and beloved grandson Sam. She is also survived by many first cousins in Iowa, Texas and Arizona. She will be buried in the Jewish cemetery Adath Yeshurun in Minneapolis, MN, several hundred miles upstream of her family's plot along the Mississippi River in Dubuque.

Yael took pride in her writing and in the last years of her life enjoyed posting a weekly essay on her Caring Bridge site. Before she died, she said that she wanted her friends and her relatives to know that she loved them dearly.

Donations in her memory may be made to the Caring Bridge or the World Central Kitchen.

Further information is available at

www.salazarfunerals.com or www.hodroffepstein.com