AOK
's mother, Mary Heaphy O'Keeffe
, a stage performer in Dublin like her husband, left her family when Adelaide was about five, to live with another man as his wife.
O’Keeffe, Adelaide, and John O’Keeffe. “Memoirs”. O’Keeffe’s Legacy to his Daughter, edited by Adelaide O’Keeffe and Adelaide O’Keeffe, G. Whittaker, 1834, p. x - xxxv.