Contact continues...

I am still getting results from the Kankakee newspaper article. I was not able to get back down there to talk to people this week. I have a part time job and got wrapped up in some things.

I have heard from a Keehan family member for the first time. I have discovered his family was from Southern Illinois and Missouri. His sister died of Cancer. I was hoping I would at least be able to talk to her.

John was not very close to his family in Southern Illinois. Some of them are embarassed by the newspaper article. Understandable. The family is not happy about this film being made.

But the family member was very surprised when I said there was no marker on John's grave. They said, "...that is odd, his family was rich."

This is what made the film happen, no marker on the grave. I told her,"Every person deserves a grave marker, something to mark the sign of his passing on this earth." Maybe the film will be his marker. We will see.


At one point the family member asked me if I was sure he was dead. Am I sure. All I know is what everyone else knows. People keep asking me this.

I did a lot of explaining. This was on the computer in a chat window. No one from the family seems to want to talk to me. The person who did seemed to be fearful of the family reaction. I asked for family pictures, anything, anyone to talk about John's early life on camera. No way.

This family member seemed a bit facinated by the subject hiself. This chat window conversation went on for an hour almost. I got odds and ends, but no images to back it up, no video interviews possible.

"Worldly fame is but a breath of wind that blows now this way, and now that, and changes name as it changes direction."

"We must overact our part in some measure, in order to produce any effect at all."

Dante Alighieri
Italian poet, born at Florence, 1265

John Keehan/Dante was not all bad, nor all good. How do we judge his life? Where does it pivot, where does the line between darkness and light get crossed? I am making this film!

What will I encounter next?