Longtime Macomb County attorney, avid hunter dies
Edward Keller, a longtime attorney in Macomb County who left a legacy in the legal field and hunting, died Oct. 9 at age 88.
Keller, who resided in Bruce Township, served as an assistant Macomb County prosecutor, where he handled several highprofile cases, from 1961 to 1964, and went into private practice first with Frank Jeannette, who later became a judge, and later with three of his four children.
“I think I can speak for my whole family when I say that our Dad was our rock, our biggest fan and the man we looked up to most in this world,” his daughter, Dena Keller, said in an email. “He was a hardworking, principled man who led by example. He shared his passion for the law and hunting with each of us, but his true love was his family. He adored my mother until the day he died and told each of his children how much he loved us every time we spoke.”
Dena Keller is chief of the Narcotics Unit in the Prosecutor’s Office, his son, George, is a Juvenile Court referee, and his daughter, Tara Gupta, is an attorney.
Antonio Viviano, a former Macomb County probate and circuit court judge and currently a visiting judge, got to know Keller in the 1960s when Viviano was an assistant prosecutor until 1974. From 1978 to 1992, they shared an office on Groesbeck Highway in Mount Clemens.
“He was a heck of a lawyer and a heck of a trial attorney,” Viviano said. “He had absolute, unfettered integrity. I learned a lot from him.”
Viviano’s children, David, now a Michigan Supreme
Court justice, and Kathy, a Macomb Circuit Court judge, practiced with Keller out of the same office after Antonio became a probate judge in 1992.
Ed Keller grew up in West Virginia and moved to Mount Clemens in 1957 after serving in the Air Force as a second lieutenant at Tyndall Air Force Base in Panama City, Fla. He remained in the Air Force Reserve until 1974 and achieved the rank of captain. He earned a law degree from Detroit College of Law and studied at University of Michigan Law School.
While working in the Prosecutor’s Office, hemet andmarried CarolMorris, to his wife for 54 years.
Keller retired from law in 2015 and devoted his time to managing Beacon Cove Marina in Harrison Township along with his partners Earl and Teri Jo Velger and Joan Emerick.
Keller was an avid hunter and in that endeavor traveled to six continents, including 13 trips to Africa, nine each to Mexico and Canada, seven toAlaska andmany to several European countries as well as New Zealand and Argentina. He contributed articles to hunting magazines and a book, and authored and published a book about his trips to Africa, “My Africa,” in 2017. Also that year, he received the prestigious World Hunting Award Ring, presented to him in Las Vegas. The Keller trophy room was featured in the book, “Great Hunters Volume III.”
He was amember of several civic organizations in Macomb County.
In addition to his wife, Carol, he is survived by his four children, including Nikki Keller, and 10 grandchildren.