Local authors write untold biography of four-star general from Whitewater

When Jerry Ford met Four-Star Gen. Seth McKee for lunch one day in Phoenix, he had no idea the exchange would lead to a nearly five-year-long writing project, culminating in the publication of the book “Seth: The Life and Journey of General Seth Jefferson McKee” by the Kellerman Foundation for Historic Preservation in 2020. But sometimes, that’s how life goes.

It was 2015, and Ford was in Arizona for a jazz festival. Throughout the years, he had been in contact with McKee, who grew up in Whitewater; Ford expected their lunch to last for an hour or so, after which he would be on his merry way. But that’s not how it happened.

Instead, “It was a four-hour entreatise by him on three wars and seven presidents — and me without a tape recorder,” Ford recalls. “It was such an interesting time and a historical time for me, listening to him.”

When Ford came back to Cape Girardeau, he saw Dr. Frank Nickell by happenstance, and told him about his visit with McKee. Nickell mentioned McKee was the only four-star general in the Air Force who hadn’t yet had a book written about him. That was when Ford knew they were the people to write it.

Gen. Seth McKee, Ford says, was the highest-ranking and longest-living survivor of D-Day. As they wrote, Ford learned that McKee participated in the development of transforming the Army Air Corps into the modern-day Air Force. Serving under six presidents, McKee logged more than 8,000 hours in the air, flew 130 different airplanes and was the first to drop a bomb from a Lockhead P-38 Lightning aircraft, as well as the first to fire a 75-mm cannon and rocket bombs from an aircraft. McKee won 26 major awards from countries around the world, including the Legion of Honor from France, the country’s highest award.

At the core of it all, though, Ford says, McKee loved his hometown of Cape Girardeau. He graduated from Cape Central High School and attended Southeast Missouri State University (SEMO) for three years before joining the National Guard in 1935 and then the Army Air Corps in 1938. One of his sons graduated from SEMO, as did several of his grandchildren. While visiting relatives in Cape later in life, Ford says McKee enjoyed eating at local restaurants.

“He’s a local person, but he’s also a national person,” Nickell says of why it was important for he and Ford to write this book. “He’s national with his role with the military; he’s an international person because during the Vietnam War, he was in charge of a whole Pacific Ocean area, and at the time of the Pueblo which the North Koreans still have in their possession, he was the center person. He was right in the middle of what could have become World War III, and he didn’t let that happen. He’s a major military person.”

Books are available for purchase through the Southeast Missouri State University Foundation at the Wehking Alumni Center, 926 Broadway in Cape Girardeau, by calling (573) 651-2259. Books can also be purchased online at semo.edu/mckeebook. All proceeds from the sale of this book benefit the Southeast Missouri State University McKee Scholarship, which supports retiring military personnel in their pursuit of higher education.

The book is organized into three parts: “Memories,” “Military Service” and “The Amazing McKees.” The first part, about McKee’s childhood growing up on a farm in Whitewater and his college years at Southeast Missouri State University, is told in first person by McKee himself, who spoke into a recorder to tell his stories before he passed away at the age of 100 in 2016. For the second and third parts of the book that detail McKee’s military career and the story of his wife and three sons, Ford and Nickell conducted interviews with McKee’s relatives, did research in family scrapbooks and asked McKee’s sons to contribute short essays. The book also includes a collection of 56 photos of McKee’s life in the U.S. and abroad. Ford calls the work not only a collaboration between himself and Nickell, but also a collaboration with McKee’s family.

Inspired by the McKee family as he wrote the book, Ford wanted to honor them in another way: through song. When he discovered McKee’s youngest son Tom — who graduated from SEMO — was one of the founders of the Air Force Memorial in Washington, D.C., Ford wrote a poem about it and put it to music, as a tribute to McKee’s wife Sally, their three sons and those who serve in the Air Force. The lyrics to the song are included in the book.

Nickell says McKee is not the only person from Southeast Missouri to have found success through the military; in fact, it’s an avenue multiple people from the region have pursued with major success in order to make their way in the world.

“One of the things I always tell people about this region is that life was always tough here,” Nickell says. “It was always difficult to make a living in Southeast Missouri. It was the frontier for a long time, stayed longer as a frontier than almost any place from the Midwest on to the Pacific Coast. And one way to deal with that is for young people to move away and go into the military, go into music or go into sports. Those are kind of the vehicles to make progress.”

Nickell notes that for children who grew up on farms throughout the region, mothers played a key role. This is why he and Ford had the McKees’ sons write short essays about their mother, which they included in the book.

“I was born and raised on a tenant farm, and the crucial person in that experience was my mother. And that was true for these boys,” Nickell says. “Their mother was a dominant factor in encouraging them to succeed and to achieve. And so, that’s an important part of the story, it’s an important part of the book, and it’s an important part of life in Southeast Missouri — the role of women and mothers in helping their youngsters survive and prosper.”

He hopes the book helps people from Cape Girardeau and beyond learn more about the region.

“It’s a great story for Southeast Missouri, and for the people of humble origins in the United States,” Nickell says. “Here’s a man born into a family that literally had nothing material but became very successful. … It’s a good book for understanding Southeast Missouri.”