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Topsham, Vermont-----Selma M. Keenan, 94, died Saturday, August 24, 2002 at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, NH after a brief illness. She was born in New York City on July 16, 1908, the daughter of Adele and Henry Meisels. As a young child, her family moved to Cracow which was a part of Austria at the time. Her family fled Austria at the time of World War I and returned to New York City where Mrs. Keenan finished her undergraduate schooling. She was a graduate of Cornell University in the Class of 1930. She completed a Masters Degree in Social Work at Columbia University in 1945. She then spent many years working for the Board of Education of New York City in the Bureau of Child Guidance as a Social Worker until she retired in 1975. After her retirement from the Bureau of Child Guidance, she moved to Topsham, Vermont with her husband. After his death, she went to work for the Orange County Mental Health Service, Inc. as a Social Work Consultant/Supervisor and later became the Director of Clinical Services. She held this position until she retired for the second time in 1988 at the age of 80. She then began a second Masters program at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis which she completed in 2000. She had finished the class work for a doctoral degree in psychoanalysis and was working on her thesis at the time of her death. She was also actively practicing psychotherapy at the time of her death.
Her husband, D'Elbert Keenan, Phd. died in 1975. He had been a Professor of French at New York University until his retirement. She was also predeceased by her stepson, Michael Keenan, who died in 1986.
Although a resident of Topsham, she enjoyed visiting her New York City apartment. Mrs. Keenan had served on the Topsham Library Board and was interested in town activities and affairs. She recently became a member of the Board of the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. She also had a world wide network of friends and colleagues whom she communicated and visited with on a regular basis.
There will be a Memorial Gathering at the Topsham Presbyterian Church, Topsham, Vermont on Sunday, September 1, 2002 at three o'clock in the afternoon with a reception following at the Topsham Town Hall. It will be a time of sharing memories.
A private burial will be held at a later date in the Bayside Cemetery, Potsdam, New York in the Keenan family plot.
Contributions in her memory may be made to the Blake Memorial Public Library, E. Corinth, Vermont 05040 or the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis in Brookline, Mass.
Wilkinson-Beane Funeral Home, 164 Pleasant Street, Laconia, NH is in charge of the arrangements.
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