Michael C. Keating.  The successive promotions and stages of service are not merely an indication but a proof that Michael C. Keating from youth up has been sustained and propelled forward by a vital and definite purpose and wholesome ambition to make the best of his talents, to render services in proportion to his abilities, and to do good both for himself and for others.
Mr. Keating is a native of Cleveland, born November 30, 1878, and his father died in the same year. This alone was an event which made it practically inevitable that he would be forced out upon his own resources at the earliest possible age. His education was confined to a few years in parochial schools of Cleveland. At thirteen he left school and then entered the service of the Big Four Railway Company, beginning as office boy, and was finally promoted to clerk of the yards. Leaving them, he was a city employe [sic] four years, and in 1906 got into his permanent line of business, the oil industry, as superintendent of the plant of the Phoenix Oil Company at West Fifth Street. He was there nine years and then became a partner with T. R. Walsh in the Acme Petroleum Oil Company, in which he is now one of the managing partners and superintendent of the plant and offices at West Fifty-sixth Street and the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway.
This brief outline is sufficient indication that Mr. Keating has failed to grasp very few opportunities as he went along, and being only forty years of age still has the promise of great usefulness and prosperity before him.
His father, Michael Keating, was born in Canada in 1843, came to Cleveland about 1863, entered the railway service of the Big Four Railway Company, and was killed in railroad work in 1878, the same year his son Michael C. was born. He voted as a democrat and was a member of the Catholic Church. He married Abigail Sullivan, who was born in County Cork, Ireland, in 1851, and was three years of age in 1854 when brought to Cleveland by her parents, Timothy and Mary (Murphy) Sullican, both of whom were natives of County Cork, Ireland. The Sullivan family on coming to Cleveland were kept up as a family by the father’s efforts as a laborer. While he was cutting ice on the Cuyahoga River he was seriously injured and incapacitated for further heavy work, and after that he kept cows and operated a small dairy and milk route. Michael C. Keating’s mother died in Cleveland in October, 1914. She was the mother of a son that died at the age of two years, and a daughter, Mary, who is a maiden lady and keeps house for her younger brother, Michael C., at 3908 Bridge Avenue.
Michael C. Keating, who is unmarried, is an independent democrat in politics, is a member of the Catholic Church, and is affiliated with Forest City Council, Knights of Columbus.
Source: Avery, Elroy McKendree, A History of Cleveland and its Environs: Volume III, Biography, published 1918 by Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago and New York, p. 413-414. Available via books.google.com.