Keele Home is a Slice of Local History

The intersection of Orleans Road and Sam Rittenberg Boulevard is a bustling one. On one corner is Harrell Square Center, the home of several retail establishments just in front of the Citadel Mall. However, step back 80 years prior to Sam Rittenberg Boulevard, the Citadel Mall, Best Buy and Harrell Square Center and you would find a community of families along Orleans Road in Orleans Estate who enjoyed living in the country. The Keele’s were one of these families.
Harold Stroud Keele and his wife Mildred Lucille Woolery Keele moved to the Charleston area from Kansas City. Keele was born in Tennessee in 1909. Work opportunities with Western Union enticed him to move to Norfolk, Vir. He ultimately ended up in Missouri where he met Mildred. They worked for the same printing company. He went on to a job at the American Tobacco Co. and was transferred to the Cigar Factory in Charleston when the plant was closed in Kansas City. He continued with the American Tobacco Company as a machinist until his retirement in 1972.
For reasons we can only speculate as a love of the country, Keele moved his family to the home he built on Orleans Road on a large tract of land that would later become Harrell Square Center and part of this present day bustling intersection. Sidebar: when Harrell purchased the land in the early 1980s for the future retail establishment, he moved the home to property along the Stono River. Orleans Road was known as Clement Road and bisected Orleans Estate from the Coastal Highway to the Magwood Tract when it was “remapped” on April 17, 1933 by Richard C. Rhett for Mrs. Ella Dupont Clement who owned the property.
Harold and Mildred had two girls, Cora and Joyce when they moved into their new home at Route 4 Box 317 Orleans Road. The house had two bedrooms, one bath, a living room, dining room, kitchen and side porch. The excitement of a new home was soon replaced with sadness as Mildred passed away in 1937. Mildred’s parents moved from Illinois to the Keele home on Orleans Road to help with the two girls. Keele met his new wife, Gertrude, at the Cigar Factory and she became the girls’ stepmother in the winter of 1939.
The memories of growing up on Orleans Road are filled with attending school at St. Andrew’s Parish High School — Joyce was one of 51 students in the Class of 1951, knowing that their home was the end of the City bus line, riding bicycles on Blake Road which connected Orleans and Dupont prior to the extension of Highway 7 — Sam Rittenberg Boulevard, seeing the SCDOT widen Orleans Road in anticipation of the Citadel Mall development and fond stories of times with their neighbors. A few of the other Orleans Road neighbors were the Brockenfelt family, Mrs. Crabtree, the Antley family, Mrs. Pendarvis, Mr. and Mrs. Paul Platt, the Cox family, and the Risher family.
Although the love of Joyce’s life moved her to Sullivan’s Island, her love for St. Andrew’s Parish resonates in her stories of growing up on Orleans Road and attending St. Andrew’s Parish High School.
Interesting stories about West Ashley’s history? Contact Donna Jacobs at westashleybook@gmail.com.