Francis B. Keene

Francis B. Keene (1856–1945) was a United States diplomat and a politician in the State of Wisconsin.

Biography

Keene was born Francis Bowler Keene on December 11, 1856 to Rev. David Keene and Susan Elizabeth (Bowler) Keene in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. On November 8, 1893 he married Emerin Price Semple (1857–1936). He died in 1945 in Italy and is interred at the Campo Cestio cemetery in Rome.

Career

Keene was a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly from 1899 to 1901 sessions. From 1903 to 1905 he served as U.S. Consul in Florence, Italy, and in Geneva, Switzerland from 1905 to 1915. He served as U.S. Consul General in Zurich, Switzerland from 1915 to 1917, followed by Rome, Italy from 1917 to 1924. Aside from politics, he worked as an engineer, a coal sales agent, and a newspaper editor. Keene was a Republican.