Katherine "Katie" Burnes McKeel
also known as Katie Burnes, maiden
b. 1965-02-15
Katherine “Katie” Burnes is the daughter of Helen Louise (Eesley) Burnes and Edwin William Burnes — one of six daughters in the Burnes household, and Chuck’s first cousin once removed on the paternal Eesley side. Her sisters are Barb Burnes Hester (the oldest), Shelley Burnes, Cindy Burnes, Liz Burnes, and Roberta Burnes — the keeper of the 1940s Charles Leonard Eesley correspondence collection.
Katie married into the McKeel family and took her husband’s surname. She is one of two of the six Burnes daughters who changed her name on marriage (the other being her oldest sister Barb, who took the Hester name); the other four daughters — Shelley, Cindy, Liz, and Roberta — all kept Burnes.
In the reunion portrait
She appears at the left side of the c. 1971–1972 Eesley extended family reunion portrait — a young woman seated, identified in the typed caption simply as “Katie Burnes (Helen Burnes’ daughter).”
Details otherwise withheld — living.
Sources: family-naming correction direct from Roberta Burnes, June 2026; c. 1971–1972 Eesley extended family reunion portrait typed caption.
