It Is a far cry from the high treeless plateaus of Central India to a quiet home on a backwater of Roberts Bay but that is where Alfred G. Keerl and his wife have "thrown out their anchor" and after a lifetime of travel, settled down.

    Keerl, who was born in Buenos Aires, traveled as a boy, in Mexico, Japan, the United States, Austria and Czechoslovakia. His father, George Keerl, a naturalized Australian, traces his ancestors back in a direct line in Bavaria to the year 1410. The senior Keerl was an engineer with the steel industry and when Alfred was eight years old, took him to Essen, Germany, where he went to high School in Bochum.

    "Although I was of German lineage, he says, "I spoke nothing but Spanish and had a rather rough time at first.  In 1910 however, Keerl Senior came to New York and later became associated with the Gary Coke Plant in Indiana. There young Keerl completed his education and took a course in electrical and mechanical engineering in Chicago. But once more his father's travels interfered with his plans and off he went for a two years' stay in Japan, where his father organized a gas plant in Tokyo.

    After a tour of duty with the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Co., young Keerl went to work for the famous firm of Heinrlch Kopper, whose interest in Pittsburgh was bought out by the Mellon Company, and from 1927 he worked in Germany for this huge coke oven plant.

    In 1931 he met the girl he married, Josephine Goebel, daughter of the police commissioner of Essen, at a party. He had decided one day to "pop the question" and to that end called for her with his motorcycle. "It was a very cold day" he recalls. "and we were all bundled up in furs and rugs." But just after she had shyly said "Yes," he received orders to leave for India, and that same night saw him on his way to England and the Far East, where he remained for 13 years.

    Josephine waited for two years, then came on to Bombay where they were married.

    "When we arrived at Jamshodpur where we were to build the plant," Keerl said, "we found herds of elephants roaming the territory. There was no road but a dirt track in all of the 22 square miles. We were 140 miles from Ranchi, the nearest town and we could shoot tigers three miles from the plant."

    Keerl was then associated with the famous Tata Co. of India and the plant was built with native labor, so Keerl added Hindustani to the list of other languages, including Spanish, German, English and Japanese, with which he is familiar.

    After many years in the dry heat of India, the Keerls began to dream of green fields and streams. At last he managed to come home to the United States and after landing at San Francisco, they bought a car end toured the country looking for the farm of their dreams. Finally, they located one at Middleburg, N. Y., only 60 miles from the one his father had bought for his retirement home.

    But once more the East called to him. He said to his wife, "Here is the farm-you run it!" and returned to India. Mrs. Keerl became a lady farmer and made a tremendous success of her undertaking.

    Finally Alfred Keerl returned home and brought his wife to Florida for a vacation. But Uncle Sam caught up with him and he spent the next few years on the Mexican and Canadian borders, in Arizona, British Columbia and Illinois, organizing war materiel plants some products of which were so highly explosive that even metal shoe lace tags were clipped off the workers.

    After a final tour of duty putting in an acid plant in Norfolk, VA., he said, "I'm quitting!" and went back to the farm.

    But the traveling Keerls could not stay put. They took a trip around the world, just in case they had missed something, and then took up motor boating in a rather big way.

    In 1947, Keerl brought the "Louetta," a 50-foot yacht, down to Melbourne. The "Louetta" was built in Bremen and although she was not a last craft, she was built with a special teakwood hull and crossed the Atlantic in fine style.

    But since the Keerls sold their New York farm and settled in Venice they were content to look out from their lovely house across water they themselves have so often traveled. Alfred Keerl was a member of the Venice-Nokomis Rotary Club and the Sarasota Power Squadron. He was also a member of the Coke Oven Managers Association of London and was a charter member of his Rotary Club in India.

    Mrs. Keerl had the distinction of meeting Pope Pious XII several times when he was Cardinal Pacelli, as she was a student at the Franzlskus Sanatorium, which was directed by nuns of the Order of St. George of Thune, where His Holiness stayed while visiting Berlin, in 1924. When a house was furnished for the diplomat of the Holy See in Berlin, Mrs. Keerl helped to select draperies and decorations and many a time personally cooked the then Cardinal's meals.

    Later, while Mr. Keerl was planning his estate he indicated to his attorney John Wood Esq., a Kiwanian, that he is interested in establishing a trust to provide for vision care in a prescribed geographical area. Attorney Woods suggested the Lions Organization because of it's dedication to the vision care.