Margaret Ann Kelly

Margaret Ann Spillane – or “Peggy,” as she was called – was born in 1940 in Carbondale, Penn. One of eight siblings, she was raised in Brookland in Northeast Washington and attended St. Anthony Catholic School. She played basketball there and with her brothers at the Turkey Thicket playground. Peggy put those skills to good use while playing on Marywood College’s undefeated 1960 women’s varsity basketball team.

Peggy left Marywood and moved to London for three months, finding work in the kitchen of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, where she confounded the English. In an effort to improve the food, she asked patients what they actually thought of it. During her first marriage, to John P. Kelly (USAF), Peggy lived in Alabama, Japan, Arizona, Idaho and Texas. She handled public relations for arts organizations in Mesa, Ariz., and wrote a column for the Sun Valley Spur-Shopper. She earned a degree in journalism from Trinity University in San Antonio.

Peggy moved to Maryland in 1977. She did public relations work in support of drug abuse prevention and traffic safety. In 1979, Peggy met Bob Cramblitt when both were assigned to staff a van that traveled to festivals and fairs in Maryland, dispensing information on highway safety. They wed in 1982. Peggy was later the vice president of branch operations for AAA Maryland.

In 1988, Peggy and Bob moved to Cary. They adorned their spacious and leafy yard with outdoor sculpture created by noted artists from the Triangle area. Peggy became a certified kayaking instructor, paddling with Bob around Topsail Island, N.C.

Peggy is survived by her husband, Bob, her sons John F. Kelly (Ruth) of Silver Spring, Md., and Christopher M. Kelly (Marcia) of Oak Island, N.C., grandchildren Gwyneth, Devin, Beatrice and Sawyer, and two great-grandchildren. Her siblings Mary, Jim, Joe, Ellen, Sheila and John also survive her.

Peggy was a reader of newspapers and a writer of letters, a planter of flowers and a simmerer of sauces, a habitué of museums and of artists’ open studios, a lover of water and of dry martinis. She preferred to sit at the bar in a restaurant. She knew that’s where the best stories are.

No funeral will be held. There will be a gathering at a later date.

Donations in Peggy’s memory may be made to Habitat for Humanity.