Arthur H. Keller was the father of Helen Keller.  He had served as "a captain in the Confederate Army" during the Civil War.  He married his first wife and had two sons.  He later married his second wife, Kate Adams, who was twenty years his junior.  He was a newspaper editor, and he also managed the Keller Homestead.   He and Kate had their first child, Helen.  She was bright and energetic until contracting the illness called "acute congestion of the stomach and brain," which left her deaf and blind.  He and Kate had two more children, a daughter and a son.Helen Keller later described her father as a loving man who spent as much time with his family as possible, except when he was hunting. He was a hospitable man and an accomplished gardener. It was his appreciation of nature that inspired Helen to love flowers and trees. He was also an excellent story-teller.   Arthur Keller died in the summer of 1896.