Elly (Orly) N. Kelly
July 17, 1928 - February 6, 2023
Resident of Larkspur
Orly Nolze Kelly, born in San Francisco on July 17, 1928, was the daughter of Elly Ohms Nolze and Paul F. Nolze. Her father had moved from New York to open the San Francisco office of the North German Lloyd in 1925 and Orly and her older sister Peggy grew up speaking German in their bi-lingual household.
Orly graduated from Lowell High School at the age of 16, and continued her education at the University of California, Berkeley, where she majored in Music. She was a member of the Alpha Phi sorority and upon graduation in 1951, Orly and her sorority sister Julie Hagar Rumsey, traveled to Europe where both got jobs working for the State Department's Economic Cooperation Administration in Paris. After two years, they decided not to renew their contracts and traveled for six months before returning home to San Francisco.
In 1956, Orly married William A. Benjamin, and they began married life in New York City where their two children, Malcolm and Michele, were born. Bill was an editor with McGraw Hill Book Company, and left his position in 1958 to start W. A. Benjamin, Inc., a publisher of textbooks in chemistry, physics, and molecular biology. It was the first book company to publish its texts in both hardback and soft cover, and the company received attention when three of its authors won Nobel prizes. It was eventually sold to Addison Wesley.
Orly and Bill divorced in the mid-60s, and Orly moved to Annecy, France, with the children. Malcolm and Michele had been attending the bi-lingual Ecole Francaise in New York City, and were thus able to attend regular French school in Annecy. After a year, she and the children moved to Princeton, N.J. where Orly attended Rutgers University and got her Master's Degree in Library Science. She worked as a children's librarian in the Princeton Middle School and within two years her library was named a "Demonstration Library" for the State of New Jersey.
In 1974, Orly married her high school sweetheart, Martin J. Kelly, who had become a widower, and had traveled to Princeton to look her up. They started their life together in Larkspur, where Orly went to work for Dawne-Leigh Publications, which was later sold to Celestial Arts. Orly was the Managing Editor of the Children's Book division. When Celestial Arts was sold to Ten Speed Press, Orly went to work for Crown Zellerbach (now James River Corporation), where she worked in various capacities for ten years, ending as Financial Analyst in the Printing Papers Division. Her beloved Martin died of cancer in 1982.
Orly was an avid tennis player, and later took up golf as well. She always loved music and upon retirement joined Paul Smith's Piano Repertoire Class at the College of Marin. In 2013, Orly and her friend Lois McManus won the Concerto Competition at the College of Marin, and subsequently played the Concerto for Two Pianos by Francis Poulenc with the COM Symphony Orchestra. Music was always an important part of her life, and she and many of her friends gathered at each other's homes for years to share their music making.
Survivors include her son Malcolm, daughter Michele, grandson Matthew, her first husband Bill Benjamin, her sister Peggy Wolaver as well as a niece and three nephews, and three stepchildren Kitty Kelly O'Donnell, Sheila Kelly-Barbour, and Dennis Kelly.