Category Archives: Tamam Shud

As Derek Abbott liked to point out (particularly when he was trying to raise Somerton Man crowdfunding from Americans), we can easily imagine the Somerton Man having some US connection. This was not just from the distinctly American feather stitching on his coat, but also from his Juicy Fruit chewing gum, probably a habit picked up at a younger age (when he had more teeth to chew with).

So I’ve been playing around behind findmypast.com.au’s database paywall, seeing what’s there. And it was there that I found four American John Joseph Keanes all born in 1898, thanks to their First World War enlistment records.

These four American draftees should be worth a quick look, right?

JJK #1

Serial Number: 2271 / 3171. Address: 221 Vernon, Wakefield. Born: 28th June 1898. Description: Tall, Medium Build, Blue Eyes, Light Hair. Nationality: Irish. Next of kin: Mrs John Keane, Attymon, Galway. Drafted: Melrose City #28, Massachusetts. Occupation: Lead Busman. Employer: Thompson Scarnitt, Nitro, W. Virginia.

JJK #2

Serial Number: 2376 / 1388. Address: 2123 S. Opal, Phila, Phila, PA. Born: 13th September 1898. Description: Short Height, Medium Build, Gray Eyes, Brown Hair. Nationality: US born. Next of kin: Patrick Keane (Father), 2123 S. Opal. Drafted: Philadelphia City No. 51. Occupation: Assistant Blue Printer. Employer: United States Navy Yard, United States Govt.

There’s a John Keane, born 13th September 1898, who died in Pennsylvania in October 1966 (Social Security Number 164-05-1829): so it looks as though #2 may be fully accounted for. 🙂

JJK #3

Serial Number: 3841 / 5260. Address: 556 Paris St, San Francisco, CA. Born: 19th May 1898. Description: Medium Height, Medium Build, Blue Eyes, Auburn Hair. Next of kin: Ellen Keane, 556 Paris, San Francisco, CA. Drafted: San Francisco City No. 3. Occupation: Heater Boy. Employer: Schawbatchee shipyard, South San Francisco, San Mateo.

There’s a 1910 Census entry for 596 Athens Street, with John Keane (Head, born in Ireland), Ellen Keane (wife, born in Ireland), John J. [12] and James Keane [8] (all born in New York), and Katherine [6], Robert M. [4], Evelyn [3], and William Keane [2] (all born in California).

JJK #4

Serial Number: 1503 / 94638. Address: Brentwood, Suffolk, N.Y. Born: 25th Dec 1898. Description: Medium Height, Medium Build, Blue Eyes, Black Hair. Next of kin: Anna Keane (Mother), Galway Ireland. Drafted: Suffolk County No. 2, New York. Occupation: Farmer. Employer: Sisters, St Joseph, Brentwood, Suffolk, N.Y.

Any Matches?

Here’s the tie linked to the Somerton Man, with the name (T? or J?) Keane on it, which (I have to say) doesn’t look like any of the signatures. And we also know that the Somerton Man was tallish (5ft 11in) and with grey eyes. So it looks like we’re out of luck here, sorry.

But the point I’m trying to make (albeit implicitly) here is that this kind of archival search is extremely random and patchy. For these four draftees, we have a date of birth, a physical description, a next of kin, etc, which is really great: but this is the archival exception rather than anything like the rule. In just about every other case, we have only the tiniest of fragments – for example, marriage details are often little more than a pair of names, a place and a date. Unless you already know what you are looking for, you’re going to be struggling from the start: and that has been true of the research so far.

That Dulwich clerk, at last…

Even so, all my fine-tooth trawling through findmypast’s databases did mean that I found the Australian Electoral Rolls 1939, which (mirabile dictu!) lists:

• 5761 Keane, Clara Maude, 16 Union st, Dulwich, home duties F
• 5762 Keane, John Joseph, 16 Union st, Dulwich, clerk M

So it would seem that we finally have (probably) a wife for our Dulwich bookmakers’ clerk.

And this Clara Maude Keane in turn led (via the inevitable long string of intermediate dead-ends) to the following Family Notice in the Adelaide Chronicle of 23rd January 1941:

KEANE. —On the 20th of January [1941], John Joseph, dearly beloved husband of Clara Keane, of Gurney road, Dulwich, and loving father of Kevin and Ronald, beloved brother of Rita, Josie, and Kevin. Aged 44 years. Requiescat in pace

And so, I believe, this search ends.

For some time, I have been looking at the Somerton Man case from the point of view of tangible evidence. For a start, the much-repeated belief that he was unidentified simply doesn’t hold true: the suitcase that he (without any real doubt) left at the railway station contained three items with the name “KEANE” on them. And any reconstruction of his life (or indeed death) that starts with some kind of spy thriller-inspired ‘clean-up crew’ sanitising his effects to cover up his real name is just of zero interest to me.

So, whether you happen to like it or not, he has a surname: KEANE.

Us and Them

Of course, the South Australian Police searched high and low (and even interstate) for anybody with that particular surname who had recently gone missing. But no such person ever turned up. Even when Gerry Feltus managed to track down the mysterious nurse (whose phone number had been written on the back of the Rubaiyat connected to the dead man by a slip of paper in his trouser fob pocket), he encountered nothing apart from evasions and stonewalling from her.

Gerry knew he was being shut out of the truth, but didn’t know why. I think it should have been obvious because, as I’ve blogged before, this specific behaviour has a name: omertà, the Mafia / gangster code of silence. The nurse’s husband – Prosper (“George”) Thomson – had been tangled up with some Melbourne gangster second-hand car dealers, the name of one of whom he specifically refused to reveal in his court case against Daphne Page. So any suggestion that the nurse knew nothing of gangsters or the gangland code of silence would be completely untenable, in my opinion.

What I think Gerry perhaps didn’t grasp was the degree of antipathy that Australians felt towards the police (and even the law itself) in the period after the Second World War. In particular, the Price Commission’s arbitrary price-pegging (carried over from the war years) meant that many people’s economic activities were suddenly only viable on the black market. Trove is full of stories of butchers and greengrocers being prosecuted because they charged at the wrong price: this was a sustained failure of the social contract between a government and its people.

Really, the Price Commission made criminals of just about everyone: buying or selling a car almost inevitably became an exercise in white-collar crime. The main beneficiary of all this was organized crime groups, which clawed their way into dockside unions, off-track gambling, baccarat schools, betting on two-up, and dodgy car sales (particularly interstate, and particularly with imported American cars). Even with meat and vegetable sales!

Put all this together, and you see that the post-Second World War years in Australia were a time of Us and Them, with ‘Them’ being the government and the police. The police were really not loved: but neither were the gangsters who enabled and controlled lots of the activity on the other side of the same line. So the widespread dislike of the police was mirrored by a dislike of the gangsters, along with a fear of violent gangland reprisals.

To my eyes, this is the historical context that’s missing from people’s reconstructions of the Somerton Man’s world.

The Sound of Silence

We hear the sound of silence in the Daphne Page court case, and we hear it in Jo Thomson’s long decades of stonewalling: but I think we hear it loudest of all in the sustained lack of response to the Somerton Man. Remember:

• Nobody saw him.
• Nobody said a word.
• No trace was found.

Bless Gerry Feltus’ heart, but he only allowed himself to draw inferences from what people did say: where they remained silent, he was blocked.

For me, though, this sound of silence tells us one thing above all else: that the Somerton Man moved in gangster circles. I have no doubt at all that there were plenty of people in Adelaide and elsewhere who knew exactly who he was, but chose to say nothing. He was, as per my post on this some years ago, not so much the “Unknown Man” as the “Known Man”: despite clearly having a surname, he was an Unnameable Man.

This may not superficially appear like much, but anything that can winnow down the (apparently still rising) mountain of historical chaff to even moderately manageable proportions is a huge step in the right direction.

But how does being sure he was connected to gangsters help us, exactly?

The Baccarat School Nitkeeper

In January 1949, “two prominent Melbourne baccarat players” came forward to say that they thought the man had worked as a nitkeeper in a Lonsdale Street baccarat school “about four years previously” (i.e. ~1945). They thought he had worked there for ten weeks before disappearing, never to be seen again (until his face was in the paper, that is).

Of all the mountains of Somerton Man-related speculation and punditry, this alone stood out for me as something that could be worked with, as a research lead that had some kind of archival promise. And so I have assiduously read hundreds of articles and new reports in Trove, to try to make sense of how this part of the post-war economy worked.

It’s true that a fair few policeman back then took bribes from the gambling bosses to turn a blind eye (this was remarked upon in numerous news stories of the day). But even so, one striking fact is that the laws in Victoria relating to nitkeeping were much harsher than elsewhere in Australia:

• First offence: £20
• Second offence: £250
• Third offence: six months in prison

Because principals paid nitkeepers’ fines, it simply wasn’t in their interest to hire anyone with a prior conviction for nitkeeping, not when the fine for a second conviction leapt up to a staggering £250.

From this, my suspicion is that the man the two baccarat players were talking about had been caught in a raid after working in Melbourne for ten weeks and fined £20. And with a fine under his belt, none of the schools would then re-hire him as a nitkeeper: that would have been the end of the line.

Moreover, Byron Deveson uncovered SAPOL records for a John Joseph Keane (apparently born in 1898) who had been convicted of hindering / nitkeeping in Adelaide, and whom I then pursued through Trove.

If only I could see the Victoria court records for 1944 / 1945…

Victoria Petty Sessions Court

The records for the Victoria Petty Sessions Court are behind a findmypast paywall. So here’s what it threw up for John Keane (some or none of which may be our man John Joseph Keane):

1. The Geelong ledger is dated 23rd September 1924. “Defendant at Geelong on the 7th September 1924 did behave in an offensive manner in a public place, to wit Eastern Beach”. Pleaded guilty, but case was dismissed.
2. [John Francis Keane]: “Defendant between 10th and 11th December 1929 at [Geelong?] did break and enter the warehouse of the Geelong [???] Water Company Pty and steal therein 13 cases of Dewars whisky seven cases of Johnny Walker whisky five cases of Gilbeys gin and two cases of Hennesys brandy valued at £190”. Result: “Committed for trial at the first sittings of the Supreme Court to be held in Geelong 1930. Bail allowed accused in the sum of £200/-/-.”
3. [J Keane] Colac Courts, Victoria. 17th March 1930, Conviction: “Drunk”.
4. The Geelong ledger is dated 19th March 1940, but the stamp on the page is marked 10th Feb 1940. The Sergeant of Police was Arthur De La Rue. Keane (and indeed 49 others) were accused of: “Defendant at Geelong did commit a breach of Act 3749 Section 148 – Found in common gaming house”. The case was “Dismissed”.
5. The Geelong ledger is dated 24th November 1944, but the stamp on the page related to Keane’s being found (along with 25 others) in a common gaming house on 25th September 1944, with a summons dated 11th October 1944. The case was adjourned until 8th December 1944. The Senior Constable of Police was Colin Egerton.
6. On 8th December 1944, Keane returned to Geelong court and admitted that he had been present on that occasion, but pleaded not guilty. There seems to be no records of the court’s response (most of the other defendants on that occasion were represented by a Mr Sullivan, and pled that they had not been present), but the other defendants who also admitted being present while pleading not guilty were discharged with a caution.

So, no definitive results here. Bah!

John Joseph Keane – BDM

Finally: are there any fragments of Birth / Death / Marriages that we might stitch together to eliminate some or all of the possible John Joseph Keanes out there? Here’s what I found:

Findmypast lists:

• John Joseph Keane born 1898, died 1950 in Shepp (registration 21625).
• John Joseph Keane marrying Florence Mary Clancy in Victoria in 1930 (registration 6892)
• John Joseph Keane marrying Alma Maude McKay in Victoria in 1939 (registration 346)

FamilySearch.org lists:

• John Joseph Keane died 20th January 1941, buried West Terrace Cemetery, Adelaide (billiongraves image). Also with the same headstone: Delia McKague (died 15th January 1939, findmypast says she was born in 1863 and died in Glen Osmond), Kevin Newland Keane (died 29th June 1967, findmypast says KNK was born in 1902, married Alleyne Maud(e) Dinnis (born 1905) 19th December 1927, lived at 6 Smith St Southwark), and Marguerite Ellen Wilson (died 12th April 1984 aged 85 years).
• John Joseph Keane (retired) died 7th August 1967, in Brunswick, Victoria
• John Joseph Keane (grocer) died 17th June 1972, in Castlemaine, Victoria

If there’s a way of stitching all, some or even a few of these strands together, I for one certainly can’t see it yet. But perhaps you will?

While (yet again) raking through Trove a while back for anything to do with the missing bookmaker’s clerk (and gambling nitkeeper) John Joseph Kean(e), I found two mentions (here and here) of a May 1948 divorce in a Sydney court between J. J. Kean and V. M. Kean in front of Mr. Justice Clancy in No. 2 Court.

Even though this trail had previously gone cold, I returned to it today to see if I could find anything more about “V. M. Kean”: and this time around, it turned out that the Gods of Trove were a little more on my side.

63 Jetty Road, really?

I first found a November 1945 open letter from “V. M. Keane” published in the Adelaide Advertiser on the 16th, 17th and 19th:

PERSONS who have left goods to be sold on commission make enquiries re same by December 1st, 1945, otherwise the undersigned will not be responsible (Signed) V. M. KEANE. 63 Jetty road. Glenelg

This then led me to find an article in the 30th October 1945 Adelaide News:

At Glenelg yesterday, while Mrs. Veronica Mary Kean was serving in her secondhand shop in Jetty road about 3 p.m., she left two rings on the counter. An hour later they were missing. […] One of them, an eternity ring, was valued at £4 and the other, a gold ring, at £3.

A similar article appeared here in the Adelaide ‘Tiser:

Two rings, together valued at £7, were stolen from the secondhand shop of Mrs Veronica Mary Kean, home duties, of Jetty road, Glenelg, on Monday. PCC Rawson is enquiring.

There’s a reference to “Kean, Veronica Mary” in the 1945 SA Police Gazette (category H: “Stealing In Dwellings etc”), the index to which is visible online.

In 1951, we see a business at the same address: “Miss Muffet 63 JETTY ROAD, GLENELG The Children’s Wear Specialists Large range of Over coats and Frocks in all shades and sizes.”

The shop was already called “Miss Muffet” in January 1946, as per this article:

In aid of the RSL Building fund, a variety show and mannequin parade will be held in the Glenelg Town Hall at 8 p.m on Wednesday February 13. Organiser is Mrs. S. Eitzen and compere Malcolm Ellenby. Mannequins—Mary Rennie (bathing beauty candidate), Zita Minagall, Beth Habib, Patricia Rennie, Mary Abbley, Gipsy Rowe, Lorraine Hart, Barbara Jacob. Cynthia Marshall. Mona Allison Stella Minney and June Lord. Clothes displayed by courtesy of leading Glenelg stores. Bookings at “Miss Muffet,” Jetty road, Glenelg.

Was Veronica Mary Kean also the owner of the Miss Muffet shop? I suspect not, because the letter in the Advertiser seems to imply that she had had the lease of her second hand shop’s premises withdrawn as of 1st December 1945. But a branch of The National Bank of Australasia opened at 63 Jetty Road on 2nd January 1952, giving any Miss Muffet searchers an end date to work with.

Marriage or Death?

So, can we find details of her marriage? The only SA marriage I found for a Veronica Mary Keane was from 1946:

KEANE — SMITH.— The marriage of Veronica Mary, only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. A. H. Smith, of St. Peters, to Hillary Ignatius, fifth son of the late Mr. and Mrs. B. J. Keane, of Goodwood, was solemnised at St. Francis Xavier’s Cathedral on July 20, at 6 p.m.

However, NSW’s BDM website found me a 1926 marriage between James J Kean and Veronica M O’Brien in Glebe (refs: 11392/1926 and 11392/1926). Sadly, images for these aren’t available online.

As for her death, the LDS FamilySearch website yields only a death on 20th December 1968 of a widow called “Keena, Veronica Mary” in Warrnambool: but I somewhat doubt that that was her. Similarly, GenealogySA only suggests a Veronica Mary Keane (whose deceased husband was William Joseph Keane) who died in 1971.

What do I think?

OK, I admit I got a little bit excited when I found Veronica Mary Kean(e) running a second hand shop on 63 Jetty Road, Glenelg in 1945. But it does seem as though she was not the same V. M. Kean who divorced J. J. Kean in Sydney in May 1948 – realistically, that was almost certainly James J. Kean and Veronica Mary Kean (nee O’Brien) terminating their 1926 Glebe marriage.

My best guess is therefore that the Veronica Mary Keane of 63 Jetty Road was in fact the Veronica Mary Smith who married Hillary Ignatius Keane on 20th July 1946, and whose engagement was announced in the Adelaide Advertiser on 3rd November 1945:

SMITH—KEANE. —Mr. and Mrs. A. H. Smith, of St. Peters, wish to announce the engagement of their only daughter, Veronica M., to Hillary I. (RAAF. Pacific), fifth son of the late Mr. and Mrs. B. P. Keane, of Goodwood.

Like another Adelaidean with whom Somerton Man researchers are thoroughly familiar, it seems that Veronica Mary was using her married surname after getting engaged but prior to getting married.

So, it would appear to be no more than normal frustrating chance that put Veronica Mary Keane and her 63 Jetty Road second hand shop in the path of my research steamroller. Well worth a look, undoubtedly close, but… no Tamam Shud cigar this time, sorry! 🙁

While yet again raking through Trove for bookmakers’ clerk John Joseph Keane, I found another Keane: Jack Gordon Keane of Broken Hill. Back in 1916, this J. G. Keane was prosecuted by Mr B. J. Kearney, who (more than a decade later) represented John Joseph Keane in court (which may be a coincidence).

Jack Gordon Kean was ordered two months’ imprisonment, the warrant not to issue for 10 days, for non-compliance with an order for the payment of 5/ a week towards the maintenance of his child.

The Trove links I found are:

• 13 July 1916
• 14 July 1916
• 26 Oct 1917 and here

In Broken Hill’s Barrier Miner, I also found a report of a 1917 case relating to a saddle (stolen from the Southern Cross Hotel), where a John Gordon Kean (“barman employed at the Commercial Hotel”) gave evidence (he advised the recipient of the purloined saddle to go to the police).

Similarly, a “J. G. Keane” was selected for relief work on “Crystal and Kaolin Streets, near Miners Arm Hotel” in Broken Hill in July 1919.

Now, please understand that I don’t for a moment think that this is the same person as the (name-changing) John Joseph Keane I was looking for. What I’m actually wondering is whether, given that the child maintenance orders were issued in an Adelaide court, this might in fact be John Joseph Keane’s father.

Can anyone please do better than I did and track down John Gordon Keane (his surname appears with and without the final ‘e’ in different reports), plus the name of his unsupported child?

Possibly (but, as always, not necessarily) connected is that there was a Mrs J. Keane and Dorothy Keane of “78 Piper-street”, Broken Hill on a broken-down train in March 1919. Similarly, a “J Keane” of “78 Piper-street” objected to a mining concession in February 1926, and to other proposals here and here. But that might be no more than a (different) coincidence.

I keep on looking for John Joseph Keane, our hard-to-pin-down Adelaide bookmaker / bookmaker’s clerk / nitkeeper. However, my search keeps getting tangled up by the 1933 gangland murder of Sydney bookmaker John (‘Jack’ / ‘Jackie’ / ‘Mustard’) Stanislaus Keane. The 01 Oct 1933 Brisbane Truth hauled the story out into the light in its normal breathless style:

Jack Keane, third-rate bookmaker, inveterate gambler and friend of gangsters, threatened to commit the unpardonable sin of the underworld and it was decided that he should die. He had threatened to tell police the full story of the shooting of Jack Finnie and Micky McDonald, so a gunman sealed his lips for ever in death. It was a merciless, cowardly and brutal crime carried out in the deliberate modern manner of Sydney’s underworld human wolves.

And despite having a “pretty young wife” in Waddell Road, Undercliffe, Keane was (if you believe the Truth) seduced by “a gangster’s girl”, who possibly – the Truth insinuated as hard as it could – led him to his execution but had since disappeared. He lived his life, claimed the Truth, as part of the Sydney ‘talent’:

Gathered on the fringe of the underworld and its habitual and professional criminals, gangsters, gunmen, blackmailers and women of the town is a community of men, mostly young men, known as the ‘talent.’ To this social order belonged Keane. Racehorses, poker, billiards and women of their own circle are the main interests of those who comprise the ‘talent.’
They lead a precarious existence, sometimes penniless, and sometimes enriched by their constant gambling. They will do anything except work. Work is an abomination. It is regarded as a form of disease which infects.

The Sydney Truth ran a more bulked-out version of the story, with the femme fatale now described as “married and extremely attractive. She lives in a different locality to where Keane’s body was found.”

There’s a picture of Keane’s tragic death-scene, which I found here:

(According to the Sydney Daily Telegraph of 02 Oct 1933, Keane seems to have met his death after refusing to hand over his winnings to gangsters, a story which seems likely to be closer to the truth than The Truth.)

Mrs Alice Keane was so outraged by the Truth’s coverage that she then wrote them a letter (which they sneeringly called an ‘epistle’) most of which appeared in the 08 Oct 1933 Truth:

You stated that my husband was one of the class of people known as ‘talent,’ by this meaning that he was an associate of criminals and was not following in an honest manner the occupation of a bookmaker. May I inform you that my husband was rarely in Sydney during the last 12 months, and before that time he had an A.R.C. Ledger license as a bookmaker. I know and have been informed by all his friends that his honesty and integrity in his calling could not be questioned, and if he had the misfortune to lose his money and was forced to have a No. 9 license, surely his poverty should not be a reason why he should be designated as a friend of criminals, none of whom I know he was friendly with, but some of whom he might have been known to. You stated that my husband was leading a double life, and may I be permitted to say, for your guidance, that whilst in Sydney my husband rarely ever missed coming home of a night. He was a most upright and loving husband, and one of whom it could never be said that he had led a double life. Your paper stated that he had threatened to give details of the McDonald and Finnie shooting to the police, and that he was known to be a stool pigeon. It will prove how wrong the whole of your story is respecting my husband’s conduct, when you learn that at the time of the shooting my husband was in the country and, I am sure, knew or cared nothing about this gun play. He has always been regarded by his friends as a man to be respected, who keeps his opinions to himself, and one in whom any confidence reposed would be carefully guarded. As my husband had worked in the mines out west until 1920, and had since then been carrying on the calling of a bookmaker in the country, and as be was respected by all who knew him, I am sure that you will help to clear the falsely besmirched name of my dead husband.

By the 15 Oct 1933 Truth, Alice Keane was (apparently) in a terrible state: and, I’m sorry to say, the police investigation into her husband’s murder was never satisfactorily concluded. Looking back (in 1936), Keane’s murder had become merely one of a long series of unsolved Sydney gangland murders:

After seven months of investigation the inquiry before the City Coroner was closed when Detective-sergeant McRae declared, “The police do not desire to give any further evidence on this matter at this juncture. There is a certain amount of silence among those we have spoken to and we are not prepared to say anything further until we break this down. We can only say we have no evidence to offer.” It was a shocking admission of futility.

So why write all this up here? To a large degree, I think the story highlights why relying so heavily on newspapers can sometimes be problematic for historians. Clearly, the Truth’s Aussie brand of yellow journalism (one of Frank Luther Mott’s defining aspects for which is “dramatic sympathy with the ‘underdog’ against the system”) shows that the desire to sensationalize stories at (almost) all costs is far from a recent phenomenon.

And yet I also don’t quite believe that the Truth completely fabricated its stories of Sydney’s ‘talent‘ (even if John Stanislaus Keane himself wasn’t one), who we moderns would perhaps see as ‘hustlers’, ‘players’, or maybe even ‘gangstas’ (as opposed to actual gangsters). So perhaps there is a glimmer of historical gold to be found in the bottom of even this mine-dark media coverage.

In a recent post, I traced Jim Kean all the way to January 1949, as he headed off to America accompanying top-performing racehorse Royal Gem to a new home in America. Royal Gem had just been bought for 150,000 USD (a very significant sum at the time) by Mr. Warner L. Jones Jr., owner of Hermitage Stud Farm in Kentucky, most likely on behalf of a syndicate. (The Adelaide News reported that the planned stud fee would be £312.)

Jimmy Kean and Royal Gem

We have a nice picture of Royal Gem (plus siblings) at George Jesser’s stables in Glenelg from the Adelaide News in August 1948, a few months before the sale. Jim Kean is, as always, pictured with Royal Gem:

News of Royal Gem’s sale hit the newspapers on 31 Dec 1948, with the first one in Trove (the Adelaide News) including a happy-looking picture of Jimmy Kean. The caption says: “JIMMY” KEAN, 54, who is in G. R. Jesser’s stables, will look after Royal Gem during the horse’s trip to America.

More specifically, the Brisbane Telegraph added:

Royal Gem will be cared for on his voyage to San Francisco next month by Jimmy Kean, 54-year-old strapper, who has looked after him since the horse was trained at Morphettville by George Jesser.

Here’s Jimmy Kean giving Royal Gem a carrot while George Jesser looks on:

Here’s a nice group photo from the Melbourne Sporting Globe, with (left-to-right) Jimmy Kean, then “Mr W. S. Cox, who handled negotiations for the American buyers; veterinary surgeon, Mr E. N. Wood; and trainer George Jesser”:

The Love Story

The Sydney Daily Telegraph of 23rd Jan 1949 told what can only be described as the secret love story behind the scenes of the sale:

If former jockey Jimmy Kean could have stopped it, champion racehorse Royal Gem would never have been sold to Amercan breeders.

He tried hard enough to prevent the sale.

Royal Gem was now on the high seas, headed for a stud farm in the “blue grass” district of Kentucky.

Plump, shortish, sandy-haired fiftyish Kean was an Adelaide stable-hand.

Newspaper reports that Royal Gem was to be sold hit him hard.

For a few days he refused to believe it. Stable mates had a hard time convincing him.

For more than a year he and the “Brown Bomber” were inseparable pals.

Except for meal breaks and his night rest, they were always together, even at the race tracks, where Jimmy waited in the weighing yard for the horse’s triumphant return, from such class races as the Newmarket Handicap, Futurity Stakes, City Handicap, and Underwood Stakes.

The thought that the friendship had to end was too much for him.

For days he haunted lawyers, racing offices, friends, seeking advice on how to halt the sale.

As a final throw he cornered Royal Gem’s owner, Mr. George Badman, at his Adelaide dairy-farm. Jimmy told Badman that the purchase price of £47,000 was “peanuts” for what he was selling.

“The Brown Bomber” could earn as much in stakes next season, and in later years command high stud service fees.

If Mr. Badman would call the deal off, Jimmy promised to hand over his life savings.

Told that the sale was clinched, Jimmy hesitated, said: “There’ll be no other horse for me!”

Replied Badman: “But there will be. Out of hundreds I’ve picked you to take Royal Gem to America.”

On the steamer Mongaburra in Sydney this week, Jimmy stood outside the horse’s special box, and recalled his experiences as he checked “The Brown Bomber” for injury after the ship’s heavy buffeting on the run from Melbourne.

Nonchalantly the horse, knee-deep in straw, eagerly munched some fresh-picked lucerne.

Jimmy passed him fit.

But things might not always be so pleasant, which accounted for a medical kit he carried.

The case cost £25, held everything from cotton-wool to penicillin.

“The Brown Bomber” also had to have specially filtered water, chopped carrots, picked grasses, and, like, small boys, had to be given regular doses of paraffin oil to keep him pepped up.

Jimmy expected to hand over Royal Gem to the Kentucky owners in about four weeks.

He hoped to persuade them to let the horse have a race or two.

He was confident that anything Shannon did the “Brown Bomber” would do better.

No matter what happened, he was happy to be with his beloved horse, believed the new owners would manage to keep him employed so that they would never have to part.

Back To Australia

Keane stayed as long as he could with Royal Gem in America, flying back in May 1949. There’s a nice piece in the Brisbane Telegraph of 19 June 1949:

Kean is anxious to return to his old favourite and will do so if U.S. immigration problems can be overcome.

Jimmy Kean, well known in racing circles in Adelaide for many years, was so impressed with racing and stud standards in America that he would return tomorrow if there was no limit to the time an Australian can remain in that country. When his time expired last month, he had no option but to return.

But what happened next? Did Jimmy Kean ever get to see his beloved “Brown Bomber” again? On this, Trove is (for the moment) silent: but perhaps, as more papers appear in Trove, one day we will find out…

As an aside, given that we now (from the above) know that Jimmy Kean both was the same “J J Kean” jockey and was 54 years old in December 1948, we can say – with much stronger certainty this time – that he was not the bookmakers’ clerk whose name Byron Deveson found in the S A Police Gazette. And so the search there still goes on…

As you’d expect, I’ve continued trying to find out more about the South Australian jockey J. J. Kean, who I wondered might be the same as the South Australian bookmaker / bookmaker’s clerk John Joseph Keane.

The nice people at the Australian Racing Museum (a tip of the padded jockey hat to Alison Raaymakers) very kindly had a look for me, but weren’t able to find any historical jockey index card, nor any reference to him in the ARM collection records. And because the various volumes of the Australasian Turf Register would only really give a list of races he was involved in (much of which I already had from Trove), that angle wasn’t likely to yield any result.

So, it was – as has so often been the case – back to Trove for a fresh trawl through the papers. This time, I took a different tack, by restricting my search solely to mentions of Kean / Keane in the Adelaide Sport. And, I’m pleased to say, I found a lot more stuff than before…

The Adelaide Sport on Kean

Might Kean have been a great Australian jockey? The writer of the Cheltenham Comment column in the 24 Dec 1919 Adelaide Sport didn’t think so, and was indeed less than complimentary about him:

I’m waiting for McGahan to put up a jockey on Warcast, when it may be a case of look out! Last two starts Kean has been on top, and backers have been a bit shy. Perhaps he will try to slip in with this slather-and-whack rider with the chance of a good dividend, or he may wait and put up a jockey.

It’s also possible that Kean was a drinker, as per the 31 Aug 1923 Adelaide Sport, depending on what you think “indisposition” means:

Both F. Cameron and J. Kean were absent from the tracks on Thursday morning on account of indisposition, and it is just possible that Clarrie Northway will have to look elsewhere for riders for his candidates at Murray Bridge to-morrow.

Adelaide Sport 14 Mar 1924 shows Kean still riding St. Ality for Clarrie Northway (including a nice photo!). And the breakthrough here being that this shows that he was known as Jim Kean:

St. Ality’s trainer, Clarrie Northway, has not experienced much luck for some time, but his ability has never been doubted. His faith in the St. Spasa gelding, who is only a four-year-old, was vindicated on Saturday. If one of his charges fails to come up to standard on the flat, Northway has little hesitation in popping him over the sticks, and he also believes in giving chances to his own boys.

Jim Kean is not one of those reckoned as “fashionable” horsemen, but no fault could be found with the dashing manner in which he handled St. Ality.

[…]

St Ality’s pilot, Jim Kean, also had the mount on Miss Nethey, and the Macigwyn mare, who was down nearly a stone compared with her impost when Pistoleno downed her at Gawler, hung on pretty tenaciously to gain second money.

Caption: “ST ALITY RETURNING TO SCALE AFTER WINNING THE HURDLE RACE AT CHELTENHAM LAST SATURDAY, WITH J. KEAN IN THE SADDLE.
W. DICK “SPORT” PHOTO.1″

Adelaide Sport 21 Mar 1924 continues in the same vein:

Jim Kean rode a well-judged race on St. Ality at the Amateur Meeting, but the same could hardly be said of his effort on the gelding last Saturday. Had he waited for another three or four furlongs to be put past before attempting to hit the front, St. Ality would have been either first or second, instead of only third.

Incidentally, there’s a nice description of Northway’s “commodious racing stables” (and cockatoo rather than a guard-dog) here.

Kean was involved in an incident in 1932, but by now he was working for Victoria Park trainer J. C. Neate:

UNTRIED GELDING DESTROYED.
Andrewella, a five-year-old bay gelding by Bangonie from Floundress, which was attached to stables of the Victoria Park mentor, J. C. Neate, came to an untimely end on Thursday morning.
While working on the training track he dislodged his rider, J. Kean, and then galloped through the training enclosure into Wakefield Street where he collided with a passing motor. As a result of the impact he sustained severe injuries to his off hind leg which necessitated his destruction.
His trainer had hopes of the Bangonie gelding turning out a successful performer.
Andrewella was owned by Mr. Ern Hoffrichter, of Denial Bay.

By 11 Oct 1934, Kean was still riding at Tailem Bend:

[…] Mr. H. W. Reichstein saddling up the veteran, Gold Metal, and Miss Paruna, while Sam Saunders was represented by Lady Devon. Both are well-known on the Murray circuit, and Jim Keane (rider of Lady Devon) is also becoming an institution up that way.

And Finally, It All Comes Together…

Just when I thought I had exhausted this whole line of research, I found a man who I think can only be the same person.In January 1949 (i.e. just too late to be the Somerton Man) Jim Kean was an Adelaide strapper, accompanying thoroughbred Royal Gem to America. If you can’t tell from the picture (and there were plenty of them in the press), Royal Gem is on the left and Jim Kean is on the right:

Hence I think this is probably the finishing post for this particular research thread: “J. J. Kean” the young jockey became Adelaide strapper Jim Kean, but it seems highly likely that he was a different person to “John Joseph Keane” (the bookmaker / bookmaker’s clerk). And so my search for the latter still goes on.

Incidentally, there is a wonderful irony to this, in that because Jim Kean was an Adelaide strapper for the thoroughbred Royal Gem in January 1949, there was surely a good chance Kean took Royal Gem for an early morning run on Somerton Beach on 1st December 1948. So I may not have found the Somerton Man here, but I may instead have found one of the very first people to see him dead on the beach. And what are the chances of that?

While trying to dig up more on John Joseph Keane (our mysterious bookmaker and Adelaide nitkeeper), I stumbled across a South Australian jockey by the name of J. J. Kean – or rather, across those few parts of his sporting life that made it into the newspapers of the day.

It really shouldn’t take a huge stretch of the imagination to wonder whether a bookmaker might have previously had a career as a jockey, so this seems like it could easily be the same person. Similarly, all Somerton Man researchers worth their salt know Paul Lawson’s speculations about the Somerton Man’s pronounced calf muscles: but rather than being a transvestite wearing high-heeled shoes, might he have simply been a jockey?

Anyway, here are my preliminary research notes, please feel free to chime in with anything else interesting you can find in Trove, because back then newspapers were full of racing news (hence I’m bound to have missed tons of stuff).

Orroroo Jockey Club

Adelaide Critic, 12 Feb 1919:

HANDICAP JUMPERS’ FLAT. […] £93 15/—Korea. 10.0 (J. Kean) […] Dividend Korea. £1 16/. Time. 2 min. 15 1/2 sec.
WELTER HANDICAP. […] £18 15/—Albaree, 8.2 (J. Kean) .. .. 3

Adelaide Express and Telegraph, 20 Feb 1919:

The rider of Korea in the Jumpers’ Flat was questioned by the stewards for his exhibition, and was suspended for one month. […]

Orroroo Handicap, one and a quarter miles. — Mr. H. E. Gregory’s Wee Spec by St. Anton— Escopete, 7 st. 11 lb. (Florence), 1; Mr. T. D. McGahan’s Warcast, 7 st. (Kean), 2; […]

Jumpers’ Flat, one and a quarter miles.—Mr. A. McDonald’s b g Lulabar, by Curtain Lecture —Miss Musk, 9 at. 13 lb. (McDonald), 1; Mr. T. D. McGahan’s Korea, 10 st 2 lb. (Kean), 2; Mr. E. A. Wickens’ Dextral, 9 st 2 lb; (Mr. F. Gammon). 3. Other starter-Conning Tower, 9 st.” (Cilento). Lulabar led out from Conning Tower, Dextral, Korea, and they continued in this order to the back of the course, where Lulabar increased his lead by ten lengths. At the home turn, Korea put in a run, but never troubled the leader, and at the finish ten lengths separated first and second, and a similar distance third.

Quorn Mercury, 21 Feb 1919:

Kean (the rider of Korea) was stood down for a month over his showing in the Jumpers Flat, which was very lenient treatment for a miserable performance.

Adelaide Advertiser, 12 Mar 1919 (and copied in many other newspapers):

The suspension by the stewards of the Orroroo Jockey Club of J. J. Kean for one month from February 13, 1919, for incompetence, has been adopted by the committee of the S.A.J.C.

At this point, J. J. Kean seems to disappear from Orroroo Jockey Club races: it seems overwhelmingly likely to me that Mr T. D. McGahan (the horse owner for whom Kean had been riding) had given Kean his marching orders following this suspension for ‘incompetence’.

Morphettville

Adelaide Chronicle, 05 Jan 1924:

J. J. Kean was suspended by the stewards from riding in races for two months for the careless riding of Tookawarrina in the first division of the Maiden Plate at Morphettville on Tuesday, caus[ing] interference to Pistolorgat and Royal Rip.

Adelaide Observer, 5 Jan 1924:

The stewards found that J. A. Hawthorn (rider of Lacepede in the Handicap Hurdle Race) accidentally interfered with Jim Cleary (ridden by J. Kean).

Later that same year, Tookawarrina broke a leg and was destroyed, according to the Adelaide Observer of 01 Nov 1924:

Tookawarrina was an aged gelding by Persian Chief, from Cilika, and was owned by Mrs. P. H. Suter. He displayed a bit of promise a year or two ago, but had been running disappointingly for some time.

Given that Kean never seemed to ride Tookawarrina after Jan 1924, it again seems fairly likely to me that he got the Order Of The Elbow from Mrs Suter following his two-month suspension.

Other Horses

Given the pithy nature of racing notes, it’s hard to be sure what other horses that “J. J. Kean” rode: but the name “Kean” appears as a jockey for numerous other horses from the time:

• Coal King
• St. Ality (Mr A. K. Hamilton, St. Spasa-Reality)
• Yellow Arry
• Departure
• Strzelecki King (Mr. M. R. Oakes’ b.g., aged)
• Miss Netley (A. E. Hamilton’s b m, 4yrs)
• Haylander
• Passado
• Wee Trunnion (Mr. J. E. Bend’s br. g)
• Sir Archibald
• Full Dook
• Some Seal
• Tripedy

Interestingly, both St. Ality and Wee Trunnion are also ridden by “K. B. Keane” (definitely not a typo): might this be a younger brother or cousin of J. J. Kean(e)?

Concussion

The Adelaide News of 14 Jun 1924 reported on a fall during a jump race, “in front of the Derby Stand”:

J. Kean, rider of Sir Archibald, suffered from slight concussion as the result of his fall from that horse in the hurdle race.

Peterborough’s Times and Northern Advertiser of 3rd Apr 1925 reported on an injury to K. B. Keane:

Jockey K. B. Keane also received injuries when his mount, Jim Cleary, toppled over in the Hurdle Race.
The condition of jockey K. B. Keane showed a slight improvement on Monday last.

“Successful Lightweight”

Perhaps most usefully of all, there’s an overview of his career in the Adelaide Register News-Pictorial of 17 Feb 1931, which sounds a lot to me like an interview with someone returning to Adelaide after a period away and now looking for work afresh:

J. Kean, who recently won a double at the Port Lincoln carnival, was a successful lightweight in this State a few years ago. He was apprenticed to T. D. McGahan for several years. Kean won the Tennant Cup at Port Augusta in 1923 on St. Ality, which later was a useful jumper. With Kean in the saddle St. Ality was successful over the battens at the Port.
Kean was also associated with C. A. Northway’s stable at Victoria Park, and when the master of the Roachfield stables had Vesper Song in hand, Kean won on the gelding in the north. Arltunga King was ridden by Kean when he won the Copper City Cup at Kadina.
Kean was also successful on Cappeedee, dam of Some Seal, which he rode to victory at Port Lincoln.
He can go to scale at 7.3 and rides over hurdles as well as on the flat. Kean holds only a B licence, but he intends to apply for a permit to ride in the city area. Kean rides several horses in their work at Victoria Park every morning, and he should not find it difficult to get mounts in races.

I can’t find any race with Kean after this date: it seems as though this interview was effectively at the end of his career as a jockey.

OK, we’ve had a few posts looking for (what turned out to be) Thomas Joseph Kean (1898-1968) from Forestville, who was – I’m now moderately sure – the first of the two men flagged up by Byron Deveson. So now it’s time to move onto John Joseph Keane of Union Street, Dulwich, Adelaide, who was a bookmaker’s clerk and nitkeeper in the years before WW2.

As before, we have little to go on. Keane’s age was reported as being 34 on 5/9/1932, and as being 40 on 26/1/1939: if both are correct, they imply he was born between 27/1/1898 and 5/9/1898, which is a tolerably narrow range of birth dates. And he was a bookmaker’s clerk in 1939. What can Trove tell us?

Bookmaker’s Licence

Here’s something that we might reasonably identify with our elusive man, from the Adelaide Advertiser, 11 Aug 1934:

BETTING CONTROL BOARD.
NOTICE is hereby given that the BOOKMAKER’S LICENCE heretofore granted by the Betting Control Board to MERVYN GIFFORD WILSON, has been CANCELLED by the Betting Control Board.
NOTICE is also given that the under-mentioned bookmakers have NOT RENEWED their LICENCES to bet after the 31st JULY 1934.
KEANE John Joseph.
HEATH George Moore.
MOSS Roy Henry.
NOTICE is also given that all persons (if any) who may have CLAIMS against any of the above mentioned bookmakers, in respect of betting transactions, must file the claims with full particulars thereof at the office of the Betting Control Board not later than the 31st day of AUGUST, 1934, and NOTICE is hereby given that any claims made after the said 31st day of August 1934 will be disregarded by the Betting Control Board so that they will not be covered by the Security or Bond held by the Board.
By order of the Board.
A. G. ALEXANDER Secretary. 17 Flinders Street, Adelaide.

Knowing that, it didn’t take long to find the matching licencing notice, in the Adelaide Advertiser of 9th Feb 1934:

J. J. Keane. 29 Stuart road, Dulwich

J. J. Keane has registered a shop at 29 Stuart road, Dulwich. On one side of the premises are private residences, and there are private homes opposite.

Note that there was also an Adelaide bookmaker called Edmund Joseph Keane, as per this Adelaide News report of 3rd Oct 1935:

Youth Fined for Being In Betting Shop
A fine of £6 with 15/ costs was imposed by Mr. H. M. Muirhead, P.M. in the Adelaide Police Court today on Harry Britt, aged 19, of Park terrace, North Unley, unemployed. Britt pleaded guilty to a charge of having, on September 25, at Adelaide, been present on the licensed bookmaking premises of Edmund Joseph Keane, at South terrace, Adelaide.

Note that this Edmund Keane also did not renew his bookmaking licence on 1st August 1936, according to the notice in the Adelaide News of 7 Aug 1936.

A Fool’s Gold Rush?

The reason that so many bookmakers were popping up in 1934 was that the Lottery and Gaming Act of 1933 had simultaneously decriminalised and licensed off-track bookmaking in South Australia. As a result, there had been a sudden gold rush of people applying for bookmaking licences. Many of the Sportsmen’s clubs of the day were complaining, saying that there were now far too many bookmakers, and that the whole business had become unsustainable: and why oh why can’t we go back to the good old days of on-track betting only? (etc)

At the same time, billiard halls (which were where a great deal of illegal betting had previously been carried) were feeling the pinch from all the new (legal) bookmakers eating their metaphorical lunch: and so many of them too applied for betting licences (but were initially turned down). Billiard hall owners wanted bookmakers to be situated a certain distance away from residential areas as part of their licence conditions, so that both groups could compete fairly with each other: as normal, there were many conflicting opinions.

Whichever way you look at it, though, there was a sharp spike in gambling at that time, as well as an oversupply of (newly-legal) off-track bookmakers. Hence it probably shouldn’t be surprising to us that John Joseph Keane not only applied for a bookmaker’s licence in February 1934 (right at the start of the wave) but also didn’t renew his licence in August 1934 (presumably when bookmaking failed to work out as well as he – and indeed many others – had hoped). Basically, it was like opening a vape shop in 2018. 😉

Dulwich Addresses

We now have several Dulwich addresses for John Joseph Keane through the 1930s:

• Greenhill road (30 Aug 1933) – unspecified, illegal wireless radio
• 29 Stuart road [rented] (09 Feb 1934) – bookmaker, n/a
• [16] Union street (13 Aug 1936) – labourer, hindering
• [16] Union street (25 Jan 1939) – bookmaker’s clerk, hindering

Commenter milongal previously found (via the S&M directory) that there was a “J J Keane, clerk” living at 16 Union Street, Dulwich “from at least 1937 to 1940 […] the clerk in Union St”, which fits neatly with the above timeline. Milongal also found a further “J J Keane” living in (no number) Shierlaw Street, Richmond from about 1940 to 1947, who may or may not be the same person.

As an aside, milongal also noted that “15 Union St was a Billiard Hall with a gambling license (proprietor JJ Collins, I think)”. Similarly, I just noticed that 17 Union Street was the 1935 address of course bookmaker F. J. Dally (“Special Flat” section).

So it seems reasonably likely to me that all these people had ended up in the Venn diagram intersection between struggling billiard hall people and struggling bookmaker people, trying desperately to make ends meet until (say) the whole baccarat school scam took off in the mid-1940s. That, or the whole war-time inter-state Price Commission black market car scam. 🙂

Where Next From Here?

Awkwardly, the answer right now is that I don’t really know. Perhaps there are other police records or police gazettes we should be looking at?

In the absence of any obvious family information to go scurrying around with, Trove also seems a little parched and desert-like. Can you find any Australian ‘John Joseph Keane’s at all born in the narrow date range? (I found seventeen ‘John Keane’s born in Ireland in 1898, but that’s not a huge amount of use.)

And yes, I know about the John Joseph Keane born in Adelaide in 1896, but he doesn’t seem to be our man. 🙁

This strand started when Byron Deveson uncovered two interesting Kean(e) men mentioned in 1930s South Australian Police Gazettes. I followed this up with a blog post on Thomas Joseph Kean, born 10th April 1898 in Northgate, Victoria, who I suspected was one of the two. Since then, I have found out more about his family, most recently with help from the nice people at GenealogySA.

Eileen Jessie Kean

KEAN, Eileen Jessie. – On August 13 [1976], Eileen Jessie Kean, beloved wife of the late Thomas Joseph, loving mother of Pat Cottle, Marj Spooner and the late Maly Pill, grandmother of 15 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.

KEAN. – THE FRIENDS of the late Mrs. EILEEN JESSIE KEAN, are advised that her Funeral will leave our private parlor, 193 Unley road, Unley, THIS DAY (Saturday), at 9.45 a.m., for the W. A. Norman Memorial Chapel, Centennial Park Crematorium. Car Park adjoins parlor.

This leads us quickly to…

Maly Josepha Pill (nee Kean)

We were looking for a May, but we now know her first name was actually Maly (presumably pronounced ‘May-Lee’). This leads us to her examination results (as “Maly J. Kean”) published 20th Dec 1937 in the Adelaide News – “Maly J. Kean. Bt. Eg, HA. AL. M. OD;“

According to this slice-of-life Melbourne Weekly Times article of 17th Jan 1945, Maly Kean spent at least part of the war working for the WAAAF at the “RAAF Flying Boat Repair Depot at Lake Boga. Here, right in the Mallee country, great flying-boats from combat areas circle round and land on the small, saucer-shaped lake for repairs and overhaul.” Having said that, her part in the great drama was fairly modest: “two attractive dental orderlies, Cpl. Maly Kean of Adelaide, and A.C.W. “Jacky” Mountier, of Sydney, who help to lessen the terrors of those called up for dental attention“.

We move swiftly on to the Melbourne Herald of 6th December 1947:

PILL-KEAN
THE marriage of Maly Josepha Kean, of South Yarra, to William Henry Pill, of Elwood, will be celebrated this afternoon at St. Joseph’s Church, South Yarra.
The bride, who is the youngest daughter of Mr and Mrs T. J. Kean, of Glenelg, SA, will be attended by Mrs Marjory Roberts and given away by Mr Geoffrey Taylor.
She will wear a classical gown of white satin and a tulle veil caught to the head with orange blossom.
The bridegroom is the only son of the late Mr and Mrs Norman Pill. Mr Daryl Berry will be his best man.

Nicely, there’s a picture of their wedding day in the Melbourne Argus of 8th December 1947 (“WEDDINGS CELEBRATED IN SUBURBAN CHURCHES”) – “MR W. PILL and bride at St Joseph’s, South Yarra. Bride was Miss M. Kean.“:

It also seems certain that this is Maly Pill (nee Kean)’s gravestone, [Anzac 2] 467 POR.2 at Mount Gravatt Cemetery in Brisbane City:

She died on 1st May 1976, just a few months before her mother’s passing.

Ellen McPhee

Maly Kean also leads us to her grandmother’s death notice in the Melbourne Age, 25th Oct 1943 (though the OCR was quite poor before I corrected it):

McPHEE. — On October 22, at 35 Charles-street, St. Kilda, Ellen McPhee, relict of the late James (late of Wandiligong), loving mother of Eileen, Jean and James, loved nana of Patricia, Marjory and Maly Kean, Eileen and Martin Murphy, James and Annett McPhee, great-grandmother of Phillipa Spooner and loved sister of Em, aged 78 years. R.I.P.

Marj Spooner (nee Kean)

The GenealogySA people also found me the (profoundly heartfelt) series of death notices for Marj Spooner from the Adelaide Advertiser of 8th Oct 2009 (she died on 5th Oct 2009). I’ll include only two here:

Loving mother of Phil, Mark, John, Helen, Julie, Janet, Greg and Mary.
Dearly loved mother-in-law-of Mail, Maureen, Albert, Graham, Greg, Judy and Tom.
Cherished grandmother of 17 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
A beautiful woman who will be forever in our hearts and will never be forgotten.

In memory of a brilliant woman whose extraordinary intellect, sparkling wit and endless generosity was equally matched by the incredible sacrifices that she made for her family.
Bless you, and thank you for opening up the world for all of us.
In loving memory, Mary and Tom.

Marj Spooner was buried at Centennial Park Cemetery, Catholic “F” Section.

Kean Family Tree, Second Attempt

Thomas Joseph Kean, born 10th April 1898 (ref 13241/1898), Northgate, Victoria, died 1968 in Adelaide (53A/5511) (Parents: Thomas Francis Kean and [MaryAnn?] Deely)
–married:
Eileen Jessie McPhee, born 10th April 1896 in Wandiligong (Parents: James McPhee, and Eileen McPhee, died 22nd October 1943, St Kilda), died 13th August 1976, (Unley?).
–and had three daughters:

#1 Patricia Jean Kean, born 1919, died 2004.
She married Victor McDonnell (‘Vic’) Cottle, born 3rd July 1913 in Crystal Brook SA (son of George Henry Victor COTTLE and Lucieton Robe WHITINGTON).
They had (at least) two daughters, born 8th February 1944 and 20th October 1945.

#2 Marjorie Agnes (‘Marj’) Kean, born 1921, died 5th October 2009.
She married Alfred Raymond (‘Rip’) Spooner, born 3rd November 1913 in Birmingham, England; died 11th April 1979.
– Their children were Phillipa (Phil) born 18th February 1943, Mark Alfred born 30th June 1945, John born 17th March 1948, then Helen, Julie, Janet, Greg and Mary.

#3 Maly Josepha (‘May’) Kean, born 20th May 1922, died 1st May 1976 in Brisbane.
She married William Henry Pill of Elwood (son of Mr and Mrs Norman Pill) on 6th December 1947 in South Yarra.

Thomas Joseph Kean, died 1968.

Though it was (briefly) intriguing to find out that he and his family were living in Glenelg from at least 1945 to December 1947, this Thomas Joseph Kean was in fact the same Thomas Joseph Kean who died on 25th July 1968 in Coromandel Valley, and who was buried in Centennial Park. This information is, again, thanks to the GenealogySA database: though there are no newspaper death notices for him, there is a death record 53A/5511 on file for him in Adelaide, with Eileen Jessie Kean marked as his wife.

OK, so he clearly wasn’t the Somerton Man. But might he have been the same shady nitkeeper before the war we have been looking for? Was he the same Thomas Joseph Kean who retired as Clerk-in-Charge at Customs and Excise in November 1961? Or might he even have been both, i.e. a pre-war poacher turned post-war gamekeeper?