Kelly a key figure in Santa Fe’s development
Daniel “Bud” Kelly saw a lot of the world in nearly century of living. He served in the military during World War II and the Korean War and traveled the globe with his wife, family members and friends.
But friends and family said he loved Santa Fe and supported local schools, arts organizations and research institutions.
Some said Kelly, who died Aug. 19 at the age of 99, helped build Santa Fe into what it is today.
Kelly died of natural causes, said his daughter, Susan Kelly.
“He was a participant in the development of Santa Fe in the 20th century,” she said. ”His legacy is his contribution to everything he touched — the Garcia Street Club, the Santa
Fe Opera, the School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe Prep, St. John’s College.”
Bud Kelly also served on the boards of the former College of Santa Fe, First National Bank and the International Folk Art Foundation.
His civic contributions earned him recognition as a Santa Fe Living Treasure in 2005.
He was born into the Gross Kelly & Co. mercantile business, which operated across New Mexico, and liquidated it in the early 1950s. He then founded the Kelly Insurance Co. and ran it until he retired in the early 1980s.
An early supporter of the Santa Fe Opera, Kelly is still remembered for presenting an insurance check for $100,000 within hours of the fire that destroyed the opera house in 1967. The money enabled the opera to continue that year’s season in the gym of the old Santa Fe High School campus, which now serves as City Hall.
“Bud was certainly involved in the establishment of and support for a whole slew of local organizations,” said longtime friend Nancy Wirth. ”He was in there slugging for what were then new groups, and thus he played an important role in shaping Santa Fe.”
Friend and photographer Tony O’Brien said Kelly “cared so much for Santa Fe. He enjoyed the arts; he enjoyed being involved. He was one of the last of a breed from a special era in Santa Fe.”
Kelly’s historical knowledge of Santa Fe and
New Mexico often astounded people. It evolved from decades of living in and learning about the state he loved.
As a boy, he worked on the Gross Kelly ranches in Eastern New Mexico before working in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, among other locales. His memories of the time he put into those work trenches remained vivid until the end.
In his autobiography, The Bu≠alo Tail, he recalled working in a Gallup branch of his family’s business, “a cross between a modern wholesale grocery distribution operation and a bartering, commodity-oriented trading operation with the Navajo, Hopi, and Pueblo Indians of western New Mexico and eastern Arizona.”
His Harvard education did not always come in handy in such situations, he said, because the school “did not offer courses in commodity trading, Indian ceremonies or how to grade raw wool, cowhides or Indian jewelry.”
After graduating with Harvard’s Class of 1943, he joined the U.S. Army, earned a commission as a lieutenant and found himself attached to an artillery division. Though he would not often talk about his war experiences, he would speak of the the loss he felt knowing many men he served with did not make it back home.
“He did not speak highly of war,” said his son, Robert Kelly.
In May 1945, Bud Kelly watched the German forces surrender in Lorient, France. After the war ended, he helped arrange European university studies for American soldiers who were waiting to be sent home. He also took classes himself during that time.
Just a few years later, he was called back to active duty to serve in the Korean conflict in the early 1950s. Following that service he returned to Santa Fe, where he lived the rest of his life.
“He loved New Mexico and was very deeply anchored here in loves and passions,” Robert Kelly said. He said his father possessed a “wonderful blend of social and asocial habits and skills. He had a writer’s mind. He made lists of everything. He recollected as much as he could by keeping these long lists of people he had met. He was a man of solicitude and yet a man who was comfortable in the world.
“Well, I don’t know if he was comfortable in the world,” Robert Kelly added, “but he made himself comfortable in the world. And that made other people comfortable.”
Bud Kelly’s wife, Jeanne, died in the early 1990s. He never remarried.
Though Bud Kelly spent much of his last years in a retirement home, his children moved him out of it earlier this year after the COVID-19 pandemic made visitations a challenge.
David Davenport, whose father was best friends with Bud Kelly since childhood, said Kelly was always fun. “He had that Irish ability to get along with lots of people and tell good stories.”
Kelly’s passing leaves him with a “sense that a piece of the past, a knowledge of history, is gone,” Davenport said. “Bud could talk knowledgeably about Santa Fe and New Mexico and its history, but that’s gone now. We’re not going to be able to see that anymore. We’re not going to be able to find it or hear it. And that makes me sad.”
Susan and Robert Kelly said they hope to hold a public celebration of their father’s life March 21, 2021 — the date of what would have been his 100th birthday.