Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation
Preserving Land — Now & Forever
Gordon and Marea McKeague, Conservation Visionaries
Gordon and Marea McKeague
Originally published Spring 2012, JDCF Newsletter
"As a boy growing up in Galena during the 1930s, Gordon McKeague was aware of the Great Depression's hardships. Yet young Gordy felt surrounded by riches beyond measure: the bountiful beauty of Jo Daviess County. Encouraged by his adventurous mother, an amateur naturalist, Gordon spent endless hours outdoors. He explored Horseshoe Mound, swam in Hughlett's Bottom, picnicked in Tapley Woods, and hiked past Pilot's Knob for a Boy Scout merit badge. Although his family would move to Chicago when he was 13, the natural beauty of northwest Illinois remained engraved in his heart and mind.
Marriage and Family Years
Gordon instilled his passion for education and conservation in the couple's four children. The family spent endless hours at museums, aquariums and zoos, climbed mountains, sailed lakes and seas around the world. Each outing was enriched by a fatherly tutorial about the site's history, geology, flora and fauna – fascinating lectures that usually attracted bystanders who mistook him for a park ranger.
Conservation Becomes Family History
The couple's first major conservation effort in Northwest Illinois was a collaborative one with Gordon's brothers, The Nature Conservancy and the Natural Land Institute: the purchase and conservation of 155 acres on the Apple River to honor and preserve the memory of the boys' parents, Robert, a former mayor of Galena, and Mary, who first introduced her sons to the wonders of nature.
"We're hopeful that it becomes a nature preserve that benefits people as well as nature," Gordon told a reporter at the time.
Partnership with JDCF
Through the JDCF, Gordon and Marea found a great match for their conservation interests and goals – and formed enjoyable friendships that have enhanced their ongoing philanthropy.
"We have loved working with Sandi and Chris," Marea says. "And it's a joy and a thrill to walk Horseshoe Mound and countless locations, knowing that our support has helped the Foundation preserve pristine sites for generations to come. Gordon and I could not imagine a greater satisfaction or worthier achievement."
Conservation Guardians of Northwest Illinois
A Division of JDCF
In March 2011, the McKeague family lost its beloved patriarch. Yet Gordon McKeague's legacy is indelibly preserved in oak-hickory forests, grasslands, dolomite cliffs and bird's eye primrose — a fitting legacy for the man who continually planted and nurtured ideas, goals and dreams.
"Dad especially loved trees," says his daughter, Susan. "He planted hundreds, selecting each sapling for its fruit, nuts, flowers, shade, or height. We teased, 'Why visit an arboretum when you can plant one?' but we cherish Dad's imprint on the land.
"Dad was a visionary. Like his trees, his philanthropy represents an extraordinary, thoughtful bequest to those he would never know. It's a gift to future generations that Mom will continue and we all should mirror. Qui Plantavit Curabit. He who has planted will preserve."
