In Memoriam

Forrest D. McKerley '57 As Yankee as they come, but also generous By Lois Shea '95G

Forrest McKerley '57 will be remembered by many for the successful business that he built and for his public generosity as a philanthropist. Others will remember him for the many private acts of kindness and charity that characterized his life. McKerley died at Concord (N.H.) Hospital on April 29. He was 82.

"When he would hear about a need, he would write a check or make sure a person got a check—whether it was a family who had a fire or a young person who needed help going to school—he just did it," his friend Steve Duprey says. Usually, there was a condition: keep the gift private.

McKerley was as Yankee as they come. "When he spoke, he was to the point," Duprey says. "He believed in hard work, being straight with people, doing business on a handshake, being generous but quiet in his community and in his state."

McKerley worked in Europe for American Express and served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. He returned from Europe in 1967 to run his family's nursing home business, which had started when his parents began taking in older people who needed care. With his brothers, he expanded the business to include 12 nursing homes in New Hampshire. After he retired from McKerley Health Care Centers in 1995, McKerley became the chief executive officer of Secure Care Products in Concord.

"I spent a day with him once traveling around some of his facilities," Duprey says. "This was a time when he had hundreds and hundreds of employees. He knew the people who worked in the laundry, and the dishwashers and the janitors—he knew their names, he knew about their families and their stories, and he cared about them. Whether he met a [U.S.] president—and he met a lot of presidents—or someone who washed dishes for him at one of his facilities, he treated them exactly the same."

McKerley was "a very proud Republican," Duprey says, and his support was courted by top politicians. Duprey, a former state Republican Party chair, says McKerley was unafraid to criticize members of his own party, but he was civil. "When he disagreed with you, he did so in a way that was unfailingly polite," he says. "If we had more members of Congress who comported themselves the way Forrest McKerley did, we would solve a lot more problems with a lot less rancor. He was a gentleman."

McKerley endowed a faculty chair in health economics at UNH and established the Everett B. Sackett Professorship Fund. With his brother Jim, he made sure that students in the department of health management and policy—future nursing home executives—received their first computer lab. A founding member of the UNH Foundation board, he was presented with the Hubbard Family Award for Service to Philanthropy in 2006.

McKerley's tastes were pretty straightforward—the LongHorn Steakhouse in Concord was a favorite lunch spot—and he loved to read. Jim McKerley says that when they were kids, Forrest would always keep reading with a flashlight after their father declared lights out. "If you wanted to give him a gift, you'd give him a good book," he adds. "He'd rather have that than a gift certificate to Walmart." Duprey says McKerley was quiet, but had "a very, very wicked and dry Yankee wit."

No one will know how many people McKerley gave a hand up to over the years. "I know that if somebody was down and out, he would say 'OK, this is the way you've got to do it,'" Jim says. "And he'd get them straightened around and they'd end up doing great. He will really be remembered as a fine gentleman."

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