Ruby Jewell Cornelison Kelly was born on July 11, 1912 near Seymour, in rural Webster County, Missouri to Davner Jackson and Florence Hattie Bralley Cornelison. She was the eighth of ten children and the last surviving child of her parents. On April 17, 1935, she married Louis Arthur Kelly in Ozark, Christian County Missouri during the great depression. After several moves living with other family members, they struck out on their own and found employment on a ranch in Kansas milking cows, and it was there that their first son was born.

They continued west during the depression and dust bowl days and lived near Los Angeles and San Diego, California, where Louis worked in a defense plant during World War II, and where four more children where born to them. After the war, they returned to Missouri, where their last two children were born.

Having been reared in a devout Christian family, Mrs. Kelly was baptized in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the summer of 1942, and later, in 1947, the family was sealed together in the Mesa, Arizona temple of the church. She had great joy in serving in Relief Society and in teaching young children in Primary for several years, and she treasured her associations with friends and family in her church activity. She and her husband also served a full-time mission in England for the church in the late 1970s.

Mrs. Kelly worked hard her entire life, taking care of her family and doing factory work in Springfield, Missouri, later in Southeast Kansas, and in her later years taking care of the elderly in and around Springfield, often caring for patients younger than herself. When her husband passed away in July of 1992, she lived alone for several years in Springfield. When it became clear to her family that she needed more care, she moved to Utah Country in Utah where she could be near several of her children.

Mrs. Kelly often spoke with love for her hard working parents, and after the love she had for her family, there was little value in anything but hard work. She loved to cook delicious meals for her children and grand children at any time she could. She was also an avid gardener, raising vegetables in her garden and beautiful flowers in her yard.

In 2003 she moved to Orem and later to Cedar Fort, where she continued to garden, and was later cared for in the Abbington Manor Care Center in Lehi, Utah with great kindness.

Mrs. Kelly is survived by six of her seven children: Roger Kelly of Key West, Florida, Rosalind (Wylie) Barrow of Sugar Land, Texas, Linda (Daniel) Metcalf of Cedar Fork, Utah, Martin (Carla) Kelly of Wellington, Utah, Ann McAvoy of Lehi, Utah, and Stephan (June) Kelly of Fillmore, Utah. Her youngest son, Lawrence (Larry) Kelly died of cancer in 1981. She leaves 34 grandchildren, 88 great grandchildren, and 3 great-great grandchildren.

A funeral service will be held on Sept. 29 at 12 p.m. at 300 North 500 East in Lehi. She will be laid to rest next to her husband of nearly 60 years in the White Chapel Memorial Gardens just West of Springfield, Missouri.

--Source: Provo Daily Herald, 27 Sept. 2012.
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