Barbara Hugo Keogh

WALLINGFORD - Barbara Jean (Hugo) Keogh, 89 and a day, died peacefully on Thursday, January 22, 2015, while tended by her family. She was the wife of the late John J. Keogh, Jr.
She was born in New Haven, Conn., on January 21, 1926, the second child of George L. and Jeannette Preller Hugo. Her childhood spanned the Great Depression and World War II, which the family spent in Momauguin, on the shore of Long Island Sound. Her rich experience of the beauty of the area, and the desperation of the era, informed and drove her artistic career.
Following a near-fatal illness at 14, she was prescribed a life of permanent convalescence. But when an academic scholarship brought her to the University of Connecticut, she decided to risk all-skiing, dancing, sailing, living to the full whatever time she might be granted. She married in 1949 and bore four children, raising them with the joy and ready enthusiasm that characterized each phase of her long and productive life.
A visual artist and writer, Mrs. Keogh produced hundreds of paintings in oil and watercolor, wrote for the New Haven Register and the Meriden Record, published a book of her poetry (Under the Canoe), and compiled a book of short stories based on her childhood (publication pending). She was Artist-in-Residence at the Millay Colony for the Arts and won a variety of awards for her paintings.
Espousing the theory that "Artists can do anything!" Mrs. Keogh aided her husband with his personnel business, John J. Keogh Associates. When he was incapacitated by illness, she not only maintained the business, but increased its billing and efficiency, gaining certification as an employment counselor in the process.
She sought ever to improve the lot of the world. A lifelong advocate for workers' rights, she worked with her daughter for peace during the Vietnam War, canvassed and demonstrated (with her mother, son, and granddaughter) against the nuclear arms race, and, after obtaining certification as a solar technologist, wrote a dictionary (The Solar Dictionary) of the special terms used in the field of solar energy. She also taught as a volunteer in the Head Start program, and for many years welcomed underprivileged children into her home through The Fresh Air Fund. With her husband, she supported dozens of other causes, including Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker Movement, for which she bore a special love.
Above all, Mrs. Keogh devoted herself to the care of her family and the family's many friends, maintaining a spacious and eclectically lovely home, with open doors to all in need of a kind or encouraging word, food and drink, and lively conversation. Included in the mix was an ever-changing menagerie of horses, turtles, frogs, rabbits, chickens, cats, ducks, geese, quail, a dozen nesting finches (who flew freely from room to room), alligators, dogs, and one passive-aggressive, fence-defying burro. She gardened vigorously and maintained a series of sailboats, with frequent and often hilarious outings on the Sound, for which her great love remained undiminished to the end. She considered her totem the seagull.
A deeply spiritual woman, she converted to Catholicism in 1952 and remained committed to her faith, which she broadened by exploring the higher teachings of other religions. In all she did, she lived the golden rule common to all: "Love God and love your neighbor as yourself."
Mrs. Keogh is survived by her brother, George Hugo, Branford, CT; her sister, Joan Hugo Currie, Huntington Beach, CA; a daughter, Joan Keogh McAfee, of Wallingford; three sons, John Keogh, Philadelphia, PA, Frederick Keogh, Fort Atkinson, WI, and Patrick Keogh, Wallingford; nine grandchildren, Heather, Noah, Hannah, Jeffery, John Patrick, and Anna Keogh and Gwendolyn, Meghan, and Charles McAfee; and six great-grandchildren, Taylor and Avery Wells, Sky Schumacher, Isabella McAfee, and Keogh and Ariel Arral. She was predeceased by her husband, John J. Keogh, Jr.; her brother, Thomas Hugo; and her grandson, Avriel Keogh.
A memorial mass will be said at the Church of the Resurrection, Wallingford, at 12:00 noon on Saturday, February 7. A reception will follow at 1282 Scard Road, Wallingford. Gifts in her memory may be made to the St. Martin de Porres Catholic Worker House, 26 Clark Street, Hartford, CT 06120, or Habitat for Humanity International, 121 Habitat Street, Americus, GA 31709-3498.

To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Barbara Hugo Keogh, please visit our floral store.