was a member of the Oliver P. Morton Post of the Grand Army of the Republic. Syphax was appointed to Post 3 in the Relief Committee of the Grand Army's Department of the Potomac, which was active from February 1888 to August 1889. It determined which Civil War veterans should be eligible for relief. He died on 4 February 1890. His wife, Abbie, lived until 19 February 1923. Because of Syphax's military service, both were buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Children When Colonel McKee died, he left Abbie Syphax a legacy of $300, and $50 for each of her children. Her nephew Henry McKee Minton, later to become a prominent physician, was also given $50. Most of the rest was bequeathed to the Catholic Church to fund a college for orphans. The will was disputed, and Abbie eventually gained $26,500 from Colonel McKee's will. When she remarried in 1904, she was reported to be "the richest colored woman in this city, and perhaps in the world." Douglas and Abbie had five children. Ernest Syphax became a pharmacist in Pittsburgh. Carrie Syphax Watson was the first Black director of domestic art in the public schools of the District of Columbia. Both Mary E. Syphax and Julia Syphax Willis became public school teachers. Theophilus John Minton Syphax attended Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, where he was a classmate and friend of future educator Roscoe Conkling Bruce. In his 20s, Theophilus changed his name to T. John McKee and decided to pass for white to evade racial discrimination. He graduated from Columbia University and became a lawyer on Wall Street, living in Manhattan. He cut off relations with his family and married a white woman; they had two sons together before getting divorced. Later he married another white woman. In the late 1940s, however, after all his siblings and first cousins had died, he sued for a portion of his grandfather McKee's estate that had not been distributed, and revealed his African-American ancestry. Notes and references Notes Citations Sources External links Union Army soldiers 1842 births 1890 deaths African-American Catholics Syphax family