Early Life and Education
Although both of his grandfathers were white men, Keeler was born into the Long Hair Clan of the Cherokee. He moved to Bartlesville, Oklahoma as a child and lived with his grandmother due to his mother’s ill health. She instilled into him “Indian ways” and Cherokee principles of morality. His mother eventually returned and attempted to raise him with white man principles and pushed for him to assimilate. The starkly contrasting influences from his mother and grandmother conflicted Keeler in his early life, but he ultimately successfully assimilated into white society. He began working for Phillips Petroleum at age sixteen while still in high school. Keeler graduated from the University of Kansas with a degree in Chemical Engineering in 1930.
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