As our thoughts and prayers are with New Orleans, Bill Kelly (Jerry's son), sent me an update on his daughter Shan's experiences in Mississippi with her daughter Emmy.  They spent the storm and its aftermath in the Armed Forces retirement home where Shan is a nurse manager.  The "safe" high-ground of the hospital still experienced flooding up to the second floor.  Bill asked me to send along his account.  Shan and Emmy have just had electricity and water restored.

 

 

Congratulations to my sister, Colleen, who was married to Paul Tambornino in Chicago in August.  We've loaded a bunch of fun pictures from the weekend.  If there's any big events in your lives that you'd like to share on a web page, please let me know!

 

Thanks to a world record Build-A-Bio submission by Jerry Finnigan, who gave factual and entertaining bios of himself and his eight siblings.  Jerry lives in Arizona and is my second cousin-once removed.  He found us on Google (I was so excited about that!) and I spent an hour on the phone with him comparing our parallel geneological lives (including trips to Ottawa, Illinois).  Jerry's grandmother, Flora, was Henry Kelly's youngest sister.  Start with Jerry's bio where you can move on to his siblings.

 

Thanks to the new bios for:  Shan Wright (Jerry's granddaughter--see above), Kathleen Swanson (Harry's granddaughter), Sheila Walsh (Laura's granddaughter), and Bob Walsh (Laura's son).  You can write your own (or a relative's) by clicking here!

 

Harry Kelly's daughters, Joanne and Mary, were kind enough to let me scan away at ninety photos and documents from Joanne's Heritage Album, Harry's yearbooks and papers from his governorship.  You can take a look at Harry's new information.  I'm still in the process of placing much of this great info on the site, so stay tuned. 

 

Finally, Brian d'Arcy James, Harry's grandson (Mary's son) who has been nominated for a Tony for "The Sweet Smell of Success" and won an Obie award for "The Good Thief" will be performing a Christmas concert in his hometown in Saginaw, Michigan December 10.  This might be a fun mini-Kelly reunion at one of the two shows (3PM & 8PM).  Here's a link to the concert information.  Patrice and I will be going.  If anyone else is going to make it, please let me know at kwteacher@yahoo.com

 

Thanks so much for all the great feedback, support and ideas.

 

--Kevin Walsh