Delores Marie Kelley

Delores Marie Kelley, 96, died peacefully on Saturday, November 7, 2020 at Woodlands Senior Park in Fond du Lac. She was born on April 18, 1924, to Raymond V. and Mary (Clark) Kelley on a farm homesteaded by her great-grandparents, Jeremiah (Sr.) and Julia Kelley, on Kelley Road in the Town of Byron.



It was in her early years in Byron that Delores developed her life-long interest in music. She attended Marion School, a one-room school in the Town of Byron, Roosevelt Jr. High School and Fond du Lac High School, graduating in 1942. She moved to Fond du Lac with her parents in 1945. Delores worked for the Fond du Lac School District as a pianist and kindergarten aide and as a secretary at Fond du Lac High School before moving to Milwaukee in the early 1950s. Her secretarial career in Milwaukee included work at Pretzlaff Hardware, Northwestern Mutual Life, Prima Printing, Wisconsin Fuel, Penfield Children’s Center, and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.



Delores proudly celebrated her Irish heritage. A member of Milwaukee’s Shamrock Club, she sang at the annual Shamrock Club St. Patrick’s Day Mass for 27 years and in the Milwaukee Irish Fest choir for 16 years. She was a frequent concertgoer in the Milwaukee area. Joyce Parker’s Bay View concerts were among her favorites. Delores enjoyed traveling throughout the United States. Although she never married, Delores often said a railroad man would have been an ideal husband because she could have used his railroad pass to travel to her heart’s content. In 1978, Delores fulfilled her dream of touring Ireland, the land of her ancestors. After more than 60 years in Milwaukee, Delores returned to Fond du Lac in December of 2016, residing at Woodlands Senior Park until her passing. Delores was a member of Holy Family Parish and of the Third Order of St. Francis.



In addition to her parents, Delores was preceded in death by an infant brother and all her first cousins Marion Dyer Betz, Louis Dyer, Lester Dyer, Eunice McCready Bramstadt, John Gordon McCready, and Roland McCready; and by friends from her many years in Milwaukee. She is survived by Betz, Dyer and McCready relatives.



Due to current COVID-19 concerns, a memorial service will be held at a later date at Holy Family Church in Fond du Lac. Cremation has taken place. Delores’s cremains will be buried next to her parents in Calvary Cemetery in Fond du Lac.



Special thanks go out to the caring and devoted staff at Woodlands Senior Park and Dr. Kumar, all of whom understood Delores’s unique Irish personality, to the Agnesian Hospice team who comforted Delores in her last days, and to Vickie Flocker, whose friendship and help in Delores’s senior years was cherished.

Additional information and guestbook can be found at ueckerwitt.com