John Mikel Kelly lost his left arm to cancer at 44. But it never stopped him from doing anything he wanted to do for the next 53 years.
He drove, mowed the lawn, used a tiller to cultivate a vegetable garden, made his own peanut butter, raised Bantam show chickens, and climbed a ladder to clean the gutters at church.
Kelly also delivered for Meals on Wheels, assisted at the Mission Haven clothes closet at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur and was still volunteering at his church’s food pantry a month before his death.
“He was just a very strong man of strong character. He stayed busy,” said his daughter Karon Pinion of Hoschton, Ga. “He would figure out a way to do anything he wanted to do. He was proud of his family, and we were proud of him.”
Kelly, of Jonesboro, died Feb. 25 of complications from diabetes at Piedmont Henry Hospital. He was 97. His funeral was Feb. 28 at Stockbridge Presbyterian Church.
He was born in 1917 in Laurel, Miss., and grew up in Pensacola, Fla. He was the third of nine children, and he survived them all.
To help his struggling family make ends meet, Kelly dropped out of high school in the 10th grade to work for the Civilian Conservation Corps in North Carolina for a year. He returned to school and earned his high school diploma.
He signed up for flight school with the Army Air Forces and started classes at the University of Florida. In 1941, Kelly left college after two years when he was called up for flight training at Randolph Field in Texas. The next year, he married Lorraine Griffith on the night of his flight school graduation.
“She rode the train from Gainesville, Fla., to Randolph Field to get married,” Pinion said. “Then they moved to San Diego. That’s where I was born.”
At age 81, Kelly made his family a video recapping his experiences during World War II. He told the family that he’d been a flight instructor in California before he was sent in 1944 to China, where he flew bombing missions over Burma and Indochina.
In 1946, he left the military and reunited with his wife and daughter in Florida. The family moved to Hapeville in 1952.
Kelly worked as a quality control inspector for the General Services Administration. In his spare time, he raised prize-winning Bantam show chickens, collecting numerous ribbons and trophies.
He retired in 1982. His wife died the following year. In 1984, he married Annie Laura Mills, a widow, at Hapeville Presbyterian Church, where both of their families worshipped and they both served as elders.
The couple moved to a home on a 3-acre lot in Stockbridge where he gave up raising show chickens and became a master gardener. “He preferred vegetable gardening. I liked flowers. We grew both,” his wife Annie Kelly said.
His garden flourished with blueberries, blackberries and all kinds of vegetables. He shared the bounty with family, neighbors, friends and church members. “He grew beautiful, gorgeous tomatoes,” Annie said. “The ladies at church would be waiting with bags to get some of John’s fresh tomatoes.”
Kelly continued gardening when the couple downsized to a senior apartment community in Jonesboro about four years ago. He tended two small garden plots, one for his thumb-size blackberries and another for vegetables.
He loved the outdoors and took long walks every day. “He fainted on two occasions while out on walks,” Pinion said. “So we convinced him to walk inside. He’d still get in 2 miles a day.”
When he wasn’t outdoors, Kelly volunteered in his church and community. A month before his death, he showed up with his wife to work in the food pantry at Stockbridge Presbyterian Church, said Sue Scheer, former chairman of the church’s Witness Committee.
“He was very active. He could do more with one arm than many people do with two,” Scheer said. “We have a lot of seniors in our congregation. Because he was so involved, he was an inspiration to them and the younger people as well.”
In addition to wife Annie and daughter Karon, Kelly is survived by daughters Nancy Russell of Powder Springs and Carol Johnson of Stockbridge; sons Gary Kelly of Destin, Fla., and Daryl Kelly of Monroe, Ga.; 11 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.
About the Author
