Keith McKenzie White

Keith leaves behind his wife Mary, his children Nicola (“Nicky”), Amanda (“Manda”, who authored this), Priscilla (“Cilla”), Clive, and Samantha (“Sam”). His eldest son Shaun predeceased him in October 2021. His grandchildren Albert, Jessica, Heather, Kayla, Cole and Hanak Rose, and three great grandchildren.

My best memories of my Step-Dad are too numerous to mention here but two stand out; our time together when Keith was near the end of his Boeing aerospace engineer career working on a project in Mojave, driving to my place in Huntington Beach on weekends. We spent hours walking the beach, watching surfers catching waves north of the pier and eating Wahoo’s fish tacos. The other best memory is of Dad at his “snowbird” house in Sayulita, Mexico, when he’d sit watching me (attempting) surfing when I visited. He loved Sayulita with its laid-back lifestyle. Dad drew the architectural drawings for the construction of that house and learned enough Spanish to be able to communicate with the local construction crew.

Dad was one of those Dads who fixed up Volkswagens and liked to keep these older vehicles going. He drove various VW campers early on during his Boeing commuting years; if he’d had the chance I think he’d have liked to take one further around the USA when he was younger. He drove us in one of them on a camping trip from Delaware to Prince Edward Island one summer.

Dad was a huge 1960s aficionado -- the music he loved (Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthrie, The Beatles, Joan Baez, Carole King), the classic cars, ocean liners, the space race of that era; his earliest Boeing work was on the Apollo team who designed part of the Saturn V rocket’s engine components. He had this ‘60s nostalgia very much in common with his son Shaun -- they were completely in sync with their opinions and appreciation of those times, even though Shaun wasn’t born until 1958.

Dad always loved adventures and projects; after he retired he took his yacht down the Intracoastal Waterway to Florida and back one year. He built his own spacious three-level home from a complete log home kit on a plot of land he bought close to the Sassafras river in Maryland. He only had professional help installing the roof. He kept his yacht at Gregg Neck Boatyard, walking distance from this house, spent every summer there for many years, upgrading the yacht’s controls, enhancing the interior, making loads of sailing friends. Even after he lost his right arm to bone cancer he continued working on his yacht and accomplished many more upgrades with little need for help. In later years he made a documentary of the history of the boatyard and made DVD copies for everyone.

My step-sister Nicky retired recently and was able to spend more time with Dad here in St. Augustine after Dad moved here (due to a stroke) to be near me and his other daughters Cilla and Sam. Nicky and Dad enjoyed a special barbecue place in Palm Coast where they could sit alongside the Intracoastal Waterway, a stretch Dad had passed along on his yacht trip 25 years earlier.

Dad wrote several novels in his retirement and self-published them on Amazon. He had just finished a personal memoir in October with photos compiled into 150 pages – about his family members (mostly poem form), his childhood and his adventures, which I promised him I’d finalize and publish so we can all have our own copies.