Up North Mommy: Inspiration for Mommy character in Family Circus dies

May 26, 2008

Inspiration for Mommy character in Family Circus dies

I grew up reading Family Circus in the Peach section of the Toledo Blade. I can still name all four kids: Billy, Dolly, Jeffy, and PJ. As far as I was concerned, PJ was by far the most adorable baby I had ever seen, until I had my own. :) Their mom was always so sweet and patient, never losing her temper like I sometimes do. Sadly, I just read on CNN that the inspiration for Mommy, Thelma Keane, died today.

Thelma Keane, the inspiration for the Mommy character in the long-running "Family Circus" comic created by her husband, Bil Keane, has died. She was 82. She died Friday of Alzheimer's disease, the family said.

"Family Circus," which Keane began drawing in 1960, depicts the good-humored life of two parents and their four children. It is now featured in about 1,500 newspapers.

"She was the inspiration for all of my success," Bil Keane, 85, told The Associated Press from his home in Paradise Valley on Sunday. "When the cartoon first appeared, she looked so much like Mommy that if she was in the supermarket pushing her cart around, people would come up to her and say, 'Aren't you the Mommy in 'Family Circus?' and she would admit it."

[...]

Not only was Thelma Keane the inspiration for the always-loving and ever-patient comic character also named Thel, but she worked full-time as her husband's business and financial manager. Her family says she was the reason Bil Keane became one of the first syndicated newspaper cartoonists to win back all rights to his comic.

"There was nothing that I did in the cartoon world or in the business world that she wasn't the instigator of, and she certainly deserves all the credit that I get credit for," Bil Keane said.

That's a shame.