John Neil O'Keeffe was born April 19, 1891 in Creston, Iowa. His father, John William O'Keeffe, was born in 1849 in Ireland and came to the U.S.A. in 1867. His mother, Ella Murphy, was born in 1857 in Ohio of Irish ancestry. His parents married in 1878 and had four children, of which he was the youngest, Clara (b.1880), Frank (1882), Rosella (b.1887) and John (b.1891). His father served as a Colonel in the Iowa National Guard and worked as a Clothing Merchant. The family lived at 300 South Division Street in Creston, Iowa.

In 1895 his mother died at the age of thirty-six.

After this tragic death the family moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where the father worked as a salesman for a publishing house. The elder son, Frank, also wor...