May 21, 1932 – September 22, 2022
Poet, daughter, mother, wife, sister, auntie, grandmother, great-grandmother, gardener, reader, writer, volunteer, woman of faith, friend, Democrat, PBS junkie, theater subscriber, movie lover, cultivator of all things beautiful, home and garden designer before her time, cook and baker, hostess extraordinaire, note writer and gift giver…all that she did, she did with grace, style, and love.
Carol Ruth Kelly died peacefully in Bellevue, WA, in the early morning of September 22, 2022, the first day of the season that gave her license to use one of her favorite words, “autumnal”. Born May 21, 1932, in Valley City, ND, to John and Addie (Smith) White, Carol and her family moved to Rainier, OR, in 1934, where Carol and her big sister Pat grew up. In 1947 they moved to Prineville, OR, where Carol graduated from high school, then graduated from Oregon State University in 1955 with a seemingly mismatched degree in Business because there was no English major at that time.
Introduced by professor and author Bernard Malamud, she met Gerry Wells Kelly at OSU and they married in 1956. Their first child, John, was born in New Haven, CT; son Michael in Grants Pass, OR; and daughter Emily in Bellevue, WA. The family moved to Mercer Island in 1965 and raised their kids in a charming former “escape from Seattle” summer cabin there. Carol and Gerry divorced in 1983 but were faithful friends through the end of Gerry’s life in 1995. After being a stay-at-home mom, Carol went back to work at Mercer Island Presbyterian Church, where she was church secretary and friend to many for over twenty years. She moved back to Bellevue in 1999, and in 2006 she married David C. Meekhof, whom she had known for 50+ years. They lived happily in a Seattle bungalow for 13 years, returning to the eastside in 2019.
Carol was preceded in death by her parents John and Addie; her sister Patricia White Borgen; and her former husband Gerry. She is survived by her husband David; children and children-in-law John and Linda, Michael and Deidre, Emily and Marty; grandchildren and their partners Michael and Suzy, Matthew and Bianca, Audra and Josh; and great-grandson William Wells, who was the apple of her eye.
Beloved to her: Her extended family and extraordinary friends; her faith community at Newport Presbyterian Church; her seven “chosen sisters”; books, movies, and theater; her poetry writing and reading groups; her gardens; her various orange and white cats; and Haagen-Dazs ice cream. In her last decade of life, Carol published two books of poetry and had readings at her favorite Mercer Island haunt, Island Books.
Special thanks to Aegis Living of Bellevue, Continuum Care Hospice, and the many ministers in Carol and David’s lives, all of whom who gifted Carol and her family with loving care, kindness, and laughter all the way to the end.
A memorial service will be held at Newport Presbyterian Church in Bellevue, WA, Saturday, Nov. 5, at 1:30 p.m. No flowers please, per Carol’s adamant request. She would be humbly grateful for donations to Mary’s Place, Ryther, or the Doreen Meekhof Lecture Series at Newport Presbyterian Church.
