Edie Kelly Obituary

Services for Edith "Edie" Ann Kelly, 85, Lawrence will be held on Sunday, November 30, 2025 at 2 p.m. at Warren-McElwain Mortuary in Lawrence.

Edie Kelly was born on November 13th 1939, in Fulton, New York. She was the eldest of eight children and both her parents worked rotating shifts at the Nestle chocolate factory, where her father was active in the union. Her mother and father left her a wry sense of humor.

She married young. Her husband joined the military and she raised four children at Army bases around the country, eventually moving to Lawrence where her husband was Professor of Military Science at the University of Kansas.

In Lawrence, she took a job as a secretary for the Department of Agriculture. Her boss recognized how smart and hardworking she was and took her under his wing. After taking food science classes for two years at the University of Texas at Lubbock, she worked her way up in the Food Safety Inspection Service to become an analyst designing inspection regimes for beef packing plants, laying out inspectors, and monitoring their work. She used her experience to give myself and her adult children and grandchildren wise advice about how to handle problems that came up where they worked.

She became active in the women's movement when the family was stationed in Panama, where she and another woman founded the first chapter of the National Organization of Women in that country. She continued working for equal pay for equal work and sexual and reproductive freedom as co-president of the Lawrence NOW chapter, doing everything from planning and attending demonstrations to licking stamps and giving people rides to voting polls.

In High School she was a cheer leader where one of her chants was

All set?

You Bet!

All Here?

Let's Cheer!

Sometimes when we were getting ready to leave the house she would say, "All set?"

She was an avid reader with broad ranging interests. She liked music and while in high school once went to a show featuring Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard. She appreciated art and dabbled in painting. She also followed politics closely.

She is survived by four children, ten grandchildren, three great grandchildren, and many friends.