Celebration planned in conjunction with marker dedication By Jack Criss, The Bolivar Bullet As the result of a labor or love of a descendant – Alyssa Killebrew – the well-known Keeler family of Bolivar County and their storied history will be part of a series of forthcoming events. An exhibit featuring Keeler family art and memorabilia will be on display for the public at The Warehouse in Cleveland will open on September 1 and run through November 1. In addition, a historical marker will be dedicated at the site of the old Keeler home on Highway 32 in Shelby on October 5, followed by an open house with guided tours at the Blanchard-Harris house (another one of the main families and founders of the community) at 167 Knowlton Road in Gunnison. “I’m a Keeler by blood,” said Killebrew, a clinical psychologist who now lives and practices in Madison and who organized the celebration. “My grandmother is Garnett Keeler Scott, who grew up in Gunnison and lived there all of her life. My family would like to invite all our friends and family to this special day on October 5 celebrating our Mississippi ancestry and Delta history – which includes the good, the bad, and the ugly like any family,” she said.  “In 2008, when my mother moved to Oxford from Lexington, where I was born and raised, she gave me steamer trunks full of letters, newspaper clippings, and oil paintings of family members I did not know. In 2011, I moved to Utah for my residency and unpacked the trunks so that I could take them with me to go through. What I found was a gold mine of stories dating back to the early 1820s,” says Killebrew. She elaborated on her Facebook page about what happened next: “My great-great-grandfather, Charles Keeler, was a boat (‘Keel’) builder. He, along with his wife, Henrietta, boarded a ship that he made in Bremen, Germany, headed for the Promised Land. They disembarked in White Plains, New York and started their milling business and had seven children. My great-grandfather, Fredrick Burnett, moved South to Shelby, Mississippi, when he was a young teenager and married the preacher’s daughter, Orlenie Johnson, in 1874. They had nine children and built a Victorian-style, three-story mansion in Bolivar County known as the ‘castle in the cotton fields.’   “In late 1880 and the early 1900s, Fredrick Burnett and seven of his children passed away due to illnesses such as typhoid fever leaving the large cotton farm and all his land to his youngest daughter, my great-aunt, Laura Maie Keeler. It is so fascinating to me that the family chose Laura even though Charles Dehay Keeler (my great grandfather) was an option. After hearing about her character I realized why,” writes Killebrew. “Laura Maie was a bold, loyal, determined woman who received formal college training at Sullins College where she studied business. She did not shy away from the responsibility she inherited. A woman in the early 1900s taking over a