James ‘Jim’ Keck
Founder of Waverly’s People’s Free Medical Clinic was an advocate for lead paint removal who enjoyed singing, cooking
James Clyde Keck Jr., an advocate for lead paint removal who was a founder of the People’s Free Medical Clinic, died of a glioblastoma Nov. 30 at his Essex home. He was 83.
Born in Steubenville, Ohio, he was the son of James Clyde Keck Sr., a steelworker and bookkeeper, and his wife, Ann Elizabeth Quillin Keck, a homemaker.
He moved with his family to Orange County, California when he was a teen. He received a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley and served as a foreign language specialist in the Army.
He moved to Baltimore to attend graduate school at the Johns Hopkins University in 1965. After receiving his master’s degree there, Mr. Keck taught chemistry at the Park School.
In 1970, Mr. Keck was a key founder of the People’s Free Medical Clinic, which later became the People’s Community Health Center, located on Greenmount Avenue near Vineyard Lane in Baltimore. He found a property, an old music school, and leased it.
He served as president of the board until 1977 and remained adamant about access to health care throughout his life, said his son, Thomas Moylan Keck, a Syracuse University political science professor. In a 2011 oral history interview, the elder Mr. Keck indicated his continuing belief that health care is “a right, not a privilege, and that it should be free to all.”
A 1995 Sun article written on the clinic’s 25th anniversary said: “Idealism founded the People’s Community Health Center … when anti-war protesters, feminists and Black Panthers wanted to make free health care a right for all. Today, idealism keeps the modest, struggling health center going …”
Mr. Keck said the clinic began with mimeographed letters seeking donations. He recalled posting notices of the opening on telephone poles in the neighborhood.
The first night, he said, “I remember jokingly saying I’m going to bring a deck of cards along because we won’t have patients. But we had 17 patients … Within a short time we were seeing as many as 200 patients a week.”
Mr. Keck was also a founder of the Baltimore Experimental High School, which was housed in the Cathedral Street parish house of the old Franklin Street Presbyterian Church.
In a 1973 Sun article, he said, “We are an attempt to provide a noncoercive, nonthreatening, noncompetitive learning experience.” The 70-student school was a communal endeavor.
Mr. Keck said of his role: “The fact that I’m the director means nothing. My authority is no more than anyone else’s.”
His son recalled his father’s demeanor. “He was hyper responsible. He was a provider. He took care of his family and was generous to the people he loved,” said the younger Mr. Keck.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the elder Mr. Keck was a stalwart anti-war activist with the Baltimore Defense Committee. He and his first wife, Donna Poggi Keck, named their son after their friend Mary Moylan.
Ms. Moylan was one of nine Roman Catholic activists known as the Catonsville Nine, who used homemade napalm to burn draft files in Catonsville in 1968 to protest the U.S. role in the Vietnam War.
Mr. Keck led teach-ins and participated in demonstrations during the trial of the Catholic activists at the old federal courthouse on Calvert Street, which is now named for U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings.
Mr. Keck worked for many years in Baltimore City government, with stints at the Northwest Baltimore Corporation, Mayor’s Office of Manpower Resources and the health department, where he served as lead poisoning prevention coordinator.
In 1987, he was a deputy commissioner of the Department of Housing and Community Development and headed a city program to test safe ways to remove lead paint.
“My father was an early advocate for robust governmental response to the childhood lead poisoning epidemic,” said his son, Thomas. “He founded Leadtec Services, a business devoted to lead abatement and inspection, in 1988.”
The following year, he served as chairman of a National Institute of Building Sciences Project Committee commissioned by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to develop national guidelines for the identification and abatement of lead paint.
And in 1991, he testified at a U.S. Senate Subcommittee hearing on lead paint hazards in American housing. He was a contributing author on HUD’s 1995 Guidelines for the Evaluation and Control of Lead-Based Paint Hazards in Housing.
After residing on Abell Avenue in North Baltimore, Mr. Keck lived for more than 40 years at a home he built with friends and family on Hogpen Creek, where he enjoyed sailing and hosting crab feasts.
He enjoyed spending time with his family, singing, strumming a guitar and cooking.
In addition to his son, survivors include his wife of 39 years, Cathie Pawliske Keck, a retired Baltimore City government worker who also assisted her husband in the lead inspection business, and two granddaughters.
Plans are being made for a life celebration in 2022.