Dorothy Rhea Kelly

Dorothy Rhea Osmond was born in Wilmington, Delaware, to William B. and Emma V. Osmond. When Dorothy was about three years old the family moved to California, settling in Los Angeles. There, Dorothy would attend El Sereno Elementary School, where she would meet a boy named Jimmy Kelly, who took an interest in her in about the 7th grade. She had no idea at that time that this “little guy with a face full of freckles” would turn out to be the love of her life.

Like many others, the Osmond household was hit by hard times during the Great Depression. William lost the electric business he had started up, and joined the ranks of the unemployed until he found work in one of FDR’s work programs. During Dorothy’s Junior and Senior High School years, she would help ease her family’s financial situation by working in downtown Los Angeles in the County Tax Collector’s Office.

Fate would somehow keep Dorothy and Jim connected through the years. Dorothy, after graduating from High School, went to work for the Southern Pacific Railroad in their Los Angeles office - not knowing that at the same time Jim was working for the Southern Pacific Railroad in one of their machine shops.

After Jim had enlisted in the Navy, Dorothy’s sister Betty and Jim’s sister Jean became friends at Pasadena Junior College. One time when Jim was home on leave, Jean mentioned her friend Betty Osmond and Jim asked if by chance she had a sister named Dorothy – the girl he remembered so fondly. After Jim heard the answer, he called Dorothy up to see if he could come by to see her. Dorothy said, “Ok.” Dorothy recalled, “What a surprise I got when I opened the door. Here stood the cutest guy I had ever seen – sailor suit minus freckles. Could this be the same ‘Jimmy Kelly’?” Dorothy and Jim began to see each other as much as possible during the war years. When Jim was discharged from the Navy in 1945 Dorothy and Jim were married and life began for the Kellys.

In 1948 Dorothy and Jim moved into a little house in Monrovia, where they raised their family and lived for more than 25 years. Lessons learned during the Depression about economizing on the necessities of life stayed with Dorothy her entire life. Dorothy once recalled, “As for the family, we never went hungry. There was always food on the table. This was due to my mother’s frugal ways and means of managing money. This was a lifetime lesson to me, and I have always kept it in the back of my mind to this day.”

During those years, Jim worked as a chemist for Productol in Santa Fe Springs and Dorothy took a variety of jobs in order to help support the cost of putting their four children through the Catholic school system. In 1965, with a little money inherited from Jim’s mother, Rose, Dorothy and Jim bought their home in Shell Beach as a weekend getaway and, eventually, as a place to retire when all of their children had moved out and started lives of their own.

Jim would suffer a stroke in 1977, and much of Dorothy’s energies became focused on caring for him. Dorothy was able to continue to work at the Passionist Fathers Retreat House in Sierra Madre until retiring in 1982, after which she and Jim were able to travel a bit with family and friends.

Dorothy and Jim finally moved to Shell Beach in 1989. As Jim’s health declined further, Dorothy’s role as primary caregiver deepened. She would not relinquish this role – her labor of love – until 1992, when her beloved Jim would succumb to cancer. Dorothy continued on with her extraordinary compassion and spirit of family duty by caring for her mother in the last years of Emma’s life. She would say, “This is what you do for your family.”

Dorothy continued to live independently and fully in Shell Beach for many years. One of her greatest joys was having the “little Library” across the street, from which she could borrow any book her heart desired at a moment’s notice. She was also able to travel more extensively with her family, including a few visits to Hawaii (fulfilling another dream of hers), enjoying one of the submarine squadron reunions in Las Vegas, betting at the race course in Saratoga Springs, and visiting the WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Dorothy will be lovingly remembered by her surviving sister Jane, her children Marcia, Jim Jr., Sharon, and Bruce, her grandchildren Shiona, David, Maureen, Erin, Brian, and Spencer, her nieces and nephews, and her extended family of friends, caregivers, neighbors, and acquaintances.