A special crossing guard honored

For 30 years, she stood at the intersection of Kingsbury and Hartland Avenues in Bayside nearly every day, directing traffic and trying not to let her battle with cancer get in the way of her job. Wearing a yellow vest, a blue blouse and a white hat, she was known to all the students of P.S. 188, whom it was her job to protect, as Miss Jo or Mrs. Keating.
In August this year, Johanna Keating, 66, retired from her job as a crossing guard and on Tuesday, October 7, she was honored by Precinct 111 for her service.
“No matter what the weather brought on a given day, you would find Mrs. Keating crossing the children,” said Barbara Myers, police officer at Precinct 111. “Johanna made it her business to learn all the children’s names.”
Dealing with the students of P.S. 188, whose grades range from kindergarten to fifth was the most favorite aspect of her job, said Keating, a heavy-set, green-eyed woman who wears her silver hair short and walks around with a cane. “To me, the kids are everything,” she explained.
Some of her fondest moments as a crossing guard included dressing up as a clown or a witch for Halloween. “The kids enjoyed it,” Keating said.
Some of the students at P.S. 188, at 218-12 Hartland Avenue, have stayed in touch even after graduating. “Two kids that just finished medical school came back to talk to me,” she said.
But despite her strong relationship with the students, she didn’t tell them about her lung cancer diagnosis, which she was given in 1997, and the two surgeries that followed - one on her left lung, and one on the right one. Just when she thought she beat the disease, it reappeared in 2006.
Instead of burdening the kids with this, Keating scheduled her chemotherapies on Fridays, so she could have enough time to recover and go to work on Mondays. And on her way to the clinic where she got her chemotherapies, she would pass by her post to make sure somebody was there to cross the children.
“I just didn’t let it get me down. You might as well lie in bed,” Keating said. In fact, her first reaction when she was diagnosed was annoyance rather than self-pity. “I told myself, ‘You dummy, you had to smoke and this is what happens,’ ” she explained.
However, the students did find out when Keating lost her 36-year-old son to colon cancer in 2006. “The kids would come up and give me a hug. They would say, ‘Mommy told me your son died; I’m sorry,’ ” she explained.
Keating’s job had some annoying aspects too - like dealing with drivers not following her instructions. Once, one such driver, who was also the parent of a P.S. 188 student, hit her on purpose, injuring her knee, Keating recalled. She reported the parent, who ended up serving time behind bars.
Keating lives a few blocks from the school and she said she chose this job for a reason. “I wanted to be home when my kids were home.”