Robert Joseph Kelly’s mind was always racing with ideas for cartoons or writing music or doing impersonations of famous people.
Kelly was 49 when he died in a head-on collision on Arapahoe Road on Dec. 3.
“He was prolific,” said his sister Anne Kelly of Lexington, Mass. “Ideas just burst out of him.”
The ideas were there even as a kid. When he was 7, he set up an “amusement park” in the family backyard in Detroit. He had various booths, bike rides, a parade and food. He enlisted his five siblings to help with the venture, which he called “Kelly Land.” But that didn’t mean they got free bike rides.
Two friends, including Joel Stolinsky of Dallas, dressed in Batman outfits, Stolinsky said.
Stolinsky, who knew Robert Kelly from the time they were about 2 years old, said the Kelly basement at one time was pretty much given over to Robert Kelly’s construction of a model city, complete with skyscrapers and matchbook cars. He had no kit but built it out of cardboard.
Kelly wanted to celebrate everything, Stolinsky said, and one time, when Stolinsky was visiting Kelly in Colorado Springs, Kelly woke his friend in the middle of the night to go out and look at the first snow of the season and insisted they build arches and “monuments in the snow.”
“My brother was endlessly entertaining,” said Anne Kelly. He not only did impersonations of the famous – including Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon – but sometimes he impersonated members of his family, she said, laughing.
Robert Joseph Kelly was born Jan. 3, 1956, in Detroit and graduated from Benedictine High School there.
He worked in Denver in the computer department of a financial services firm.
He taught himself to play the guitar, piano and drum and by age 12 had his first rock band. He also played folk and jazz.
“He’d write all the parts for everyone in the band,” said Anne Kelly.
Kelly’s brothers and sisters will play some of his music for a celebration of his life at 1 p.m. Jan. 7 at Christian Community Church, 2180 S. Madison St. For information, call Anne Kelly at 781-354-6708.
In addition to his sister, he is survived by his mother, Mary L. Kelly of Spring Valley, N.Y.; two other sisters, Mary Jo Terrill of Santa Barbara, Calif., and Carol Kelly of Spring Valley; and two brothers, John Kelly of Berkeley, Calif., and Paul Kelly of Worcester, Mass.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-820-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
