BOSTON (AP) – Former U.S. Rep. Hastings Keith, who helped establish the Cape Cod National Seashore, has died.

Keith, a Massachusetts Republican who served in Congress from 1958 until 1973, died of pneumonia at a nursing home on Tuesday in his hometown of Brockton, his family said. He was 89.

“He had a really wonderful life and he went very peacefully,” said a daughter, Carolyn Keith Silvia of Bridgewater.

Keith worked in the insurance industry before winning a seat in the state Senate in the mid-1950s. He was first elected to Congress in 1958 to a district that then included the south coast of Massachusetts and Cape Cod.

His lifelong love of Cape Cod led him to sponsor a 1961 bill that established the Cape Cod National Seashore. The National Park Service honored Keith in 2002 for his efforts.

While in Congress, he also supported Medicare, elderly housing and school lunch programs, expanding the Merchant Marine and lowering the voting age to 18.

Keith helped bring million of dollars of federal aid to his district to help support housing, education, child care and the fishing industry. The federal building in New Bedford is named for him.

In the early 1960s, when it was feared that pesticides used on his district’s cranberry crop caused cancer, he insisted that the whole family drink nothing but cranberry juice.

“The industry was up in arms, and farmers were afraid they were going to lose everything, but he supported them,” his daughter said.

He always kept a cooler of cranberry juice at his congressional offices, offering it to guests instead of water, she said.

He chose not to run for reelection in 1972 while his wife battled cancer. He announced his intention to run for Congress in 1992, but withdrew because of health reasons.

When he left Congress, he spent years researching and writing about what he felt were inequities and future liabilities of public pensions and Social Security, his daughter said.

Keith’s love of the coast and ocean dated to his childhood, when he spent summers in Bourne. One of his proudest moments was when he was 10 years old and his mother let him sail from Monument Beach across Buzzards Bay to New Bedford, Silvia said.

As a youngster, he would visit the store in Bourne, buy all the newspapers, then sail out to yachts in the harbor to sell them at inflated prices, his daughter said. In college, he took shoes made in Brockton to sell to his fraternity brothers.

Keith was the second of five children, and his father served briefly as mayor of Brockton. He attended Brockton High School, Deerfield Academy and the University of Vermont. He remained active in alumni affairs at Vermont late into his life. He served in the Army in Europe during World War II.

Keith is survived by his wife, Barbara Clapp Keith of Bourne; another daughter, Helen Harriman Keith of Burlington, Vt.; three grandchildren; and a brother.

His first two wives, Louise Harriman and Frances Bland Jackson, both died of cancer.

Visiting hours are on Tuesday at Sampson and Hall Funeral Home in Brockton. A funeral service is scheduled for Wednesday at the Christ Congregational Church in Brockton, followed by burial at Union Cemetery.

AP-ES-07-21-05 2230EDT