Keo Leanne Miller was born at home near Agra, Kansas, on February 8, 1938. One of three children of Theodore and Hilda Miller, she was named after a Native American woman her parents knew.
Keo grew up on the family farm and went to school a mile down the road in Agra. The high school was small-her graduating class held just 13 people-so Keo was involved in almost every school activity: drama, sports, drum majorette, and especially music. She learned to play nearly every instrument in the band at least passably. She attended Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa, where she was a member of the highly accomplished choir and toured in Europe with the group. A couple of months after graduating from college in 1960 with a degree in music education, she married Frederick “Fritz” Fritschel, a 1957 graduate of Wartburg. The couple spent most of their married life in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where they raised two children: Heidi and Peter. The marriage ended in divorce in 1977.
Keo had several careers over her lifetime. In the 1960s she was an elementary school teacher and piano teacher. From 1968 to 1970 the family lived in New York City, where she worked as a secretary at Union Theological Seminary and studied ceramics at Teachers College, Columbia University. Upon returning to South Dakota, she became a ceramics professor at Augustana College, building up the program and constructing kilns and kickwheels. In 1980 she earned a master’s in social work from Virginia Commonwealth University, and she spent 23 years as a school social worker in Virginia’s Fairfax County Public Schools, living in Washington, DC, and in Arlington and Falls Church, Virginia. For many years she was also the counselor at the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, DC.
In the field of mental health, Keo developed a strong interest in family systems theory, pioneered by the psychiatrist Murray Bowen. She was for years associated with the Bowen Center for the Study of the Family in Washington, DC, where she served on the clinical staff and faculty, coordinated a lecture series, and participated in numerous other ways. As part of this work, she developed research interests in the social impacts of Darwin’s theory of evolution, the societal function of religion, and the evolutionary functions of laughter.
Above all, Keo was highly creative in both visual arts and music. She sang in multiple choirs in the Washington, DC area, including the Paul Hill Chorale. In the 1990s she became a productive painter, working in oil and acrylic. Though she produced a few small paintings, most of her works were large in scale, and many have an element of tongue-in-cheek humor or out-of-the-box imagery. She also loved to draw cartoons and make custom greeting cards, often silly or slyly hilarious.
She was an enthusiastic grandmother to her five grandchildren. She was game for make-believe, puppet shows, art projects, and shopping trips. She could make up endless stories and often created homemade books for her grandchildren, putting them at the center of the action.
Keo died peacefully on December 29, 2022. She is survived by her daughter, Heidi Fritschel (married to John Sither) of Arlington, Virginia, and son, Peter Fritschel (married to Pam Nelson) of Cambridge, Massachusetts; five grandchildren (Sophia and Ted Sither; Sam, Emma, and Renee Fritschel); her brother, Gary Miller (married to Annie Miller) of Pompano Beach, Florida; and her sister-in-law, Lori Miller, of Las Vegas. She was predeceased by her brother Larry Miller of Agra, Kansas, and Kearney, Nebraska.
Details about a memorial service will be forthcoming.
In lieu of flowers, the family invites contributions in Keo’s name to the Murray Bowen Archives Project at https://murraybowenarchives.org/donate/
