Reading Grandma Kelly's Will

Before we left Cousin Cynthia's home she brought out a copy of Grandma Kelly's will. She found it in a box in her basement, as we all seem to stumble into treasures hidden in plain sight. I remember the reading of the will after Grandma passed. We gathered in her old kitchen (she had two kitchens, too long a story to explain now but maybe later) and her will was read. We laughed, we cried. We remembered Grandma.

In the days ahead I'll transcribe it as Cousin Cynthia did, for safekeeping. I'm guessing that the original is much faded as my copy is just a ghost of a document now. I do know that it was written in ball point pen (prone to fading) and on sheets of notepaper that Grandma used for everything from shopping lists to her will. After all, she had raised six kids during the depression so she knew a thing or two about practicality. With equanimity she left something of importance to her to each of those six children. So here for your interest is the last part of her will which just about brings me to tears whenever I read it.

Now I have written this as fairly as I know how and hope that each and every one of you are satisfied.

I have one last, and I add my most important request that all of you regardless of circumstances that will arise (altho unseen or unspoken to me) promise from the time this will is read to you, first never argue with one another and second to help one another in every humanly possible way, and third love one another as you did when you were being raised by your daddy and me.Good-bye and always remember how much I and dad always loved you.

P.S. If there is anything you don't want give it to one of the family - No outsiders.

As Cousin Cynthia rounded the corner to this last part there wasn't a dry eye in the house. That was Grandma all the way... loving one another, and No Outsiders! Then we had a good laugh too!

Grandma Kelly (Helen Zeller Kelly 1894 - 1969)
center, surrounded by all six children, about 1981.