Roy Keeley: Athlete and Electrician

By Brian Keeley

A Sports Story

First, some background history.  

My father graduated from Wilmington High School in 1932.  During his high school career he developed an extremely accurate two hand set shot which he would shoot from 25’-35’  feet from the basket.  In 1932, he set the Wilmington single game scoring record which lasted until the 1950’s (I don’t know the number of points but I’m guessing it had to be in the 30-40 range).  His shot would hit the back of the rim and make a “pinging” noise.  Hence, his high school nickname became “Ping.” 

After graduating from high school, he and other former basketball players formed a team that would play other nearby towns (sound familiar?).  One of the players on their team was Ernest “Ernie” Woolwine.  Ernie later became my father’s brother-in-law as Ernie married my mother’s sister, Geraldine Schutten.  

Ernie was a tremendous athlete and passed his genes unto some of his sons (Jim Woolwine was an All-State baseball player for Wilmington in the early 1960’s and Tom Woolwine was an All-State quarterback at Joliet Catholic in the late 1960s).  In high school, Ernie was a great pitcher for Wilmington and once pitched for the Wilmington High School team against Olivet Nazarene College in an exhibition game.  Although the Olivet squad won the game, Ernie held their team to one run over the course of nine innings.   

Ernie was also a very feisty basketball player.  At 5’9” he would jump center for the Wilmington town team.  He frequently won the opening tip because he would put one of his feet on a foot of the much taller opposing center who was about to jump up for the opening tip.  

Ernie was also a pretty physical player.  One night, the Wilmington town team traveled to Morris to play the local Morris town team.  Apparently, the game involved a lot of hard fouls and got pretty heated.  At one point in the game, Ernie punched an opposing player in the mouth. Unfortunately, the opposing player’s father was the Morris Chief of Police.  A huge brawl ensued, and the Wilmington players had to barricade themselves in their locker room as the Morris team and fans tried to break down the door.  They were stuck in their locker room until someone called the Grundy County Sheriff’s Department and several deputies had to escort them out of town.  

Roy as the Electrician

After Roy graduated from Wilmington High School in 1932, he went to work for the Public Service Company of Northern Illinois (we know them as “ComEd”) at their Joliet office.  Initially, he started out selling lamps as the booming market for electricity was growing.  In his early years working for the Public Service Company, some of the electricians taught him how to hook up electrical wiring.  One day in the mid 1930’s, the Joliet office received a phone call from someone who had a house out in the country near Gardner and wanted to have it wired for electrical service.  That man was Francis Curry who was Al Capone’s lieutenant for the Joliet area.  The house in the country near Gardner was a safe house if things got too hot in Joliet for Mr. Curry. 

All of the Public Service Company’s electricians refused to take the job.  Since my Father was the “low man on the totem pole” and knew how to do wiring, he was sent out to Mr. Curry’s house in the country.  My Father told me that when he drove his old Model A Ford down the dirt road to the entrance of another road that lead up to the house, he was greeted by two men carrying Thompson machine guns. 

My father spent about 3 weeks wiring the entire house.  After he finished the job, Francis Curry was so happy with the result that he said to my father,  “Roy, I want to give you a pig.”  My father was polite and said he didn’t need to do that, but Mr. Curry insisted and told his men to get a pig.  The men reappeared with a live pig and put it in the rumble seat of my father’s Model A.  He drove straight to the butcher shop and had the pig slaughtered.  It fed his family for quite some time during the depression.