Louisville Medicine Volume 66, Issue 12 | Page 20

FEATURE (continued from page 17) Lorri Keeney, Steven Keeney, Dr. Virginia Keeney, Doug Keeney and Jill Keeney. Dr. Keeney has remained active and involved with Louisville’s health care community long after Art’s death. Her retirement from practicing medicine later only freed Dr. Keeney to take more of an interest in other organizations. “I remember telling her ‘Mom, you need to slow down,’” Doug Keeney said. “She said, ‘That’s exactly what older people shouldn’t do. We should keep going.’” Keep going she did. She devoted significant time and energy to Louisville Hosparus and the Louisville Orchestra. Dr. Keeney remarried in 2003, to a man named George Harrison Houston, and spent three years with him before Houston died in 2006 while the couple were on a cruise between Holland and Belgium. Now that Dr. Keeney is in her tenth decade of life, she has be- come more of a homebody than she once was. Still, she did have one more adventure which should be shared. On a cruise to Malaysia in 2013, the ship Dr. Keeney traveled on was attacked by pirates. Under the guise of fishing boats, they came upon the cruise ship rather quickly. “Our captain ordered us all down into the hallways. He had the hoses filled with water and ready if they tried to board. They did shoot at us. The captain sped the boat up and the pirates dropped back. He said that if they’d 18 LOUISVILLE MEDICINE caught us, they would have wanted to capture a person,” Dr. Kee- ney explained, a little giddy telling the story. “It was very exciting.” Today, at age 99, Dr. Keeney remains a regular attendee of several society and board meetings around Louisville including the GLMS Ethical Affairs Council. She’s also a regular attendee at the GLMS Senior Physicians Committee and the Innominate Society. Every Monday, she meets a group of retired physician friends she calls the Mafia for breakfast at a Shelbyville Road bakery. “Dr. Keeney and I ended up belonging to some of the same organizations,” said friend, colleague and fellow Mafia member Dr. Charles Oberst, director of the Senior Physicians Committee. “She loves jokes and has a great sense of humor. She’s a good companion, I’ll tell you that.” Dr. Virginia Keeney remains a transformative presence within the city of Louisville. The decades of work she and her husband gave the city and state have saved or enriched countless lives, and she remains universally respected for all she’s done. Near the close of her interview, unprompted, Dr. Keeney fell silent for a moment then said, “It’s been a good life, I really think.” Aaron Burch is the GLMS Communications Specialist.