Mark Edmond Kelly
1927-2024
Mark E. Kelly, age 97, passed away in Boise Idaho on April 1, 2024.
Mark was born and spent his early years in New York City, borough of Brooklyn. Later he and his sister, Drew, moved with their parents to Crestwood in Bronxville, suburb of NYC in Westchester County.
From age ten (10) through sixteen (16) Mark enjoyed his membership in the Boy Rangers and then the Boy Scouts where he learned many skills including leadership. He rose to be a Junior Assistant Scoutmaster.
While a senior in high school, he dated Doris Keane, who four years later, he married. After high school graduation in 1945, because the United States was still at war with Japan, Mark enlisted in the United States Navy Reserve. Mark served in several Navy bases throughout the United States. His last assignment was a crew member on a landing ship tank LST (aka large slow target). Japan surrendered in the summer of 1945. Mark was honorably discharged in 1946 and returned to his home in Bronxville, New York where his parents welcomed him.
Mark applied and was accepted as a chemical engineering student by Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He enjoyed his studies and the laboratory work very much. In 1949, during his junior year, he married his fiancé Doris Keane who had waited for his for four years. She joined him in Evanston until he received his Bachelor of Science chemical engineering degree in June 1950.
After college, Mark accepted an engineering position with the Dow Chemical Company. Mark and Doris moved their headquarters in Midland, Michigan. In the first few years they were blessed with a daughter, Maureen, and a son, Douglas. Mark enjoyed his first years at Dow working at a laboratory bench mixing the ingredients to make paints and other coatings with Dow binders. His position in customer technical service required him to work with production, product research, sales and marketing people as well as Dow customers. A broad experience that helped him greatly in the following years.
He was promoted to a Research and Development (R&D) manager and there followed a series of positions which required family moves from Midland to Milwaukee, WI, Little Rock, AR, and back to Midland. These jobs included the director of Dow’s Central Research Laboratories in Midland as well as the manager of Dow’s several R&D laboratories in western Europe from Dow’s Europe headquarters in Switzerland. Mark’s last position for Dow was in Tokyo, Japan in 1984, where he opened and staffed a small group of senior engineers and chemists for a new Office of Technology to access Japan technologies. This assignment was successful and living in Japan was very enjoyable for both Mark and Doris. During this period both their daughter and son received their university degrees and started working in the profession of their choice. Mark and his wife were very proud of both of them.
Mark and Doris moved back to the United States in 1988 where Mark retired after 38 years with Dow. They moved to first to Sante Fe, New Mexico, then Reno, Nevada, and finally to Boise, Idaho to be close to their son and his wife Pamela.
They now had time to travel. Small ship cruises, land tours and safaris to all the continents followed over the years. Mark’s favorites were their visits to Antarctica, the Arctic, and their safaris in Africa.
Mark was a world class fly fisherman for wild trout and salmon. Mark made several domestic and overseas trips to fly fish out of lodges and camps to satisfy his passion. The trips with his son and close friends were his favorites. Compatible with his travel with Doris and his fishing trips was outdoor photography, another passion. Mark believed he was an advanced amateur with some photos good enough to enlarge, frame and hang on their walls.
Mark had other interests that included astronomy, history, archaeology, entomology, ornithology, and geology.
Mark loved dogs. He had a dog almost always while growing up and later with Doris in their homes. His last two were his favorites, Irish and Lady, lovable golden retrievers.
Mark enjoyed boating and boats. Over the decades he had four racing class small sailboats, a few canoes, a few motorboats and three river boats for fly fishing.
Some of his favorite times with Doris were stays in their summer home by the AuSable river in northern Michigan and later in their seasonal homes in the Teton Valley, Idaho overlooking the Teton mountains. His favorite trout stream, Teton river, runs through this valley. Mark continued to fly fish until he was ninety (90) years old.
Doris, his wife for seventy-three (73) loving years, pre-deceased him in 2022. Surviving are his son Douglas, his daughter Maureen, grandson Douglas Mark, and his four granddaughters; Heather Kelly, Ashley Kelly, Erin Brouillard and her husband Zach, Tamera Tate and her husband Mark, plus their two daughters, Hadley and Madeline, sister Drew Conger and sister in law Elizabeth Kubisiak.