Gene Scott Keyes

Before he died on May 24, 2025, Gene Keyes devoted his life to furthering the cause of world peace, promoting the international language of Esperanto, and designing a map of the world that reduced conflict-creating errors. He lived according to his own principles, even when this flew in the face of convention.

The son of Scott Keyes, a Quaker college professor, and his writer wife Charlotte, Gene adopted his parents’ pacifism to such an extent that as a boy during the early 1950s he fretted about his mother killing bugs as she cleaned their home in State College, Pennsylvania. Young Gene was family-famous for donning a chef’s hat to bake cakes and cookies, make hand-dipped chocolates, and slowly simmer fudge until a thermometer clipped to the side of its pot indicated that it had reached just the right temperature.

Since their parents refused to buy a television, in the early 1950s Gene and his younger brother, Ralph, delivered newspapers and ran a babysitting service ("we take charge of your small ones and the charge is a small one"), then bought their own TV, one with a 10-inch screen.

After learning to ride a two-wheeler, Gene concluded that easy-on, easy-off girls’ bicycles made more sense than ones meant for boys with their obtrusive crossbar and that’s the type of bike he rode for the rest of his life. When his family moved to Puerto Rico in 1953, Gene cruised about their Hato Rey neighborhood on a Velo Solex moped, a useful vehicle since he never learned how to drive (due largely to an uncorrectable eye condition).

From an early age Gene took an avid interest in politics. When he heard that John F. Kennedy would be visiting Puerto Rico in late 1958, courting its seven votes for the Democratic nomination for president, Gene went to the airport to greet the Massachusetts Senator and get his autograph on a copy of Profiles in Courage. Gene wrote about this experience and many others in the detailed diary that he kept from his adolescence until the end of his long life.

Although Gene wanted to attend the unconventional Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, in 1959 he reluctantly enrolled at his backup choice – Harvard University – when that prestigious institution offered him a generous scholarship. During his freshman year he attended apocalyptic lectures by Professor Henry Kissinger who foresaw a possible nuclear war. Gene grew so concerned by this prospect that in 1961 he left Harvard to work full time for peace. This sometimes involved acts of civil disobedience that landed him in jail. Even though his poor eyesight and Quaker convictions would have exempted Gene from military service, he was one of the first American men to burn his draft card. His antiwar activism resulted in Gene’s spending a total of eighteen months in prison. Charlotte Keyes later wrote an article about her activist son for McCall’s magazine titled "Suppose They Gave a War and No One Came." Her article’s title introduced this catchphrase to the English lexicon.

After being paroled in 1965 Gene joined his brother, Ralph, and sister-in-law, Muriel, in Yellow Springs where they were students at Antioch College. There, he resumed a relationship with Muriel’s sister, Jane Gordon, also an Antiochian, whom he’d met while peace marching through town several years earlier.

After they married in 1968, the couple enrolled at Southern Illinois University where Jane earned a PhD and Gene a BA and MA. His master’s degree thesis focused on a near-war between Russia and China over a small island in a river bordering both countries that was exacerbated by inadequate mapping. In 1973, Jane and Gene relocated to Canada where she taught Sociology at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax and he earned a PhD in International Relations from Toronto’s York University. His thesis explored Danish nonviolent resistance to Nazi occupation during World War II. The couple had two children, Jeremy and Rachel, before divorcing in 1980. During his allotted time with his children, Gene tried to be the best father he could be: telling them stories, reciting poetry, biking together, and playing recorder on instruments he’d taught them how to play.

While in Halifax Gene won a provincial grant to design a map of existing and proposed bikeways in that area. The well-received result promoted his long-term interest in a more bikeable environment. He also produced a booklet on Quaker whalers for the Dartmouth Heritage Museum.

After briefly teaching World Politics at Brandon University in Manitoba and St. Thomas University in New Brunswick, Gene pursued his interest in the invented language of Esperanto. At a 1985 meeting of an Esperanto club in Halifax, he met a Portuguese immigrant named Mary Jo Graça. Mary Jo later offered to help him translate into Esperanto a science fiction story that he’d written, which they did in his apartment. Before Mary Jo left, Gene gave her a fortune cookie, saying not to eat it because it was stale but to read the message inside. That message read (in Esperanto) "If you are looking for a friend, look among Esperantists." How did he pull this off? It turned out that Gene had bought a fortune cookie, steamed it open, replaced the message, then re-folded the cookie and baked it. The charmed Mary Jo began a relationship with Gene that lasted until he died 36 years later.

In 2003, Gene and Mary Jo moved to Berwick, Nova Scotia. The two got around town on bicycles equipped with side baskets that they filled with treasures from yard sales and what his brother, Ralph, called Curb Mart. Their frugal ways honored the Quaker creed of living simply.

In Berwick, Gene and Mary Jo enjoyed gardening, cooking together, discussing politics, sharing jokes, reading aloud, and singing duets (something they did at the hospital two days before he died). Before bed, the couple would wish each other goodnight in Esperanto: "Bonan nokton, kaj ĝis, kaj kis’." Both attended two Esperantist conventions in Europe. Gene also catalogued an extensive library of works on Esperanto accumulated by the late Dr. Stevens Norvell of Halifax that is now housed in Alberta.

Gene’s website includes not only his Esperanto translations of Christmas carols and an unpublished novel he wrote, but poems written by his parents, his own writing about nonviolent resistance, and musing on many other subjects. These include tips on the best way to eat a slice of watermelon (start at the sweet center, then work from the outside in), how to swallow a pill that’s stuck in one’s throat (bend one’s head down until one’s chin nearly touches one’s chest), the best cure for hiccups (eat a spoonful of sugar), and his own recipe for "tea-riffic" (iced tea combined with orange juice, sugar and honey).

Gene didn’t hesitate to do things as an adult that he liked to do as a child: blow dandelion seeds into the wind, kick through piles of dead leaves, and eat honey by the spoonful. According to his son, Jeremy, Gene considered chocolate chip cookies to be the highest achievement of Western civilization. When Jeremy visited from Toronto, Gene always made them pizza, his son’s favorite.

Since he was a confirmed night owl, friends and family would often get emails from Gene in the wee hours of the morning that were written on vintage computers he’d bought for a pittance. Topics that interested him included Canadian and American politics, space exploration, technology, the environment, and parental rights of divorced fathers.

For most of his adult life Gene pursued an interest in cartography. Self-trained in this subject, he’d become interested in more accurate mapmaking as a way to improve international understanding. Doing so continued the work of California architect B.J.S. Cahill, who’d produced a butterfly-shaped map of the world that enhanced the accuracy of the size, shape, and location of land masses. To extend Cahill’s work Gene designed a map that was shaped like an "M" to minimize distortions and avoid breaking land masses apart as most maps do. A 2013 article in Wired magazine discussed Gene’s meticulous mapmaking process. Mary Jo Graça helped her partner do the intricate calculations that were called for. When Gene’s map was published and distributed worldwide, the Cahill-Keyes map and a globe he designed with the help of globemaker Joe Roubal developed an international following. A description of his mapmaking can be found on Gene’s website and on his Wikipedia page.

As Gene’s health declined, he relied on Mary Jo to reorganize his living space for easier access to his many files, books, and collectibles. She also nursed her longtime partner and took him to the hospital when necessary. Although Gene aspired to live to be 100, he fell 17 years short, dying at the age of 83.

In addition to his many substantive and lighthearted contributions to contemporary life, Gene Keyes’ own life challenged the rest of us to have the courage of our convictions and to be true to ourselves without regard to appearances.

Gene is survived by his siblings, Ralph, Steve, and Nicky; his son, Jeremy; daughter, Rachel; grandson, Bruce, as well as his soulmate Mary Jo Graça.