Rosalie Edelen Kelley

1921 - 2016

Rosalie Edelen Kelley, loving wife, devoted mother, grandmother, sister and aunt, died at her home in Atlanta on July 16th following a brief illness. She was 95. She was born in Roland Park, Maryland on February 23, 1921. When she was a child, she moved with her family to Bella Vista (now The Homestead), the Glen Arm, Maryland farm that had once been owned by Charles Jerome Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, and his wife, Betsy Patterson. In 1938, she graduated from Notre Dame Preparatory School in Baltimore, MD. She worked as a switchboard operator at Stebbins Anderson Company during WWII. In 1955, Rosalie married David Philip Kelley (deceased), a patent attorney at Bell Labs and moved to Orange, NJ and then Madison, NJ where she lived for 21 years. In 1977 she moved to Atlanta when her husband took a position with Lucent Technologies. She was a loving and devoted mother to Frances Kelley of Morgantown, WV, David Kelley (Patricia Shean) of Darien, CT and Elizabeth Kelley of Smyrna, GA, and grandmother to Clare Marie Kelley, Katherine Edelen Kelley, and Rosalie Edelen Kelley. She was preceded in death by her parents John Walbach Edelen, Sr. and Frances deChantal Boggs Edelen as well as six brothers and sisters (Anne Gardiner Scarlet, Frances Evans, Agnes deBarth Offutt Alan, Mary Therese McCabe, John Walbach Edelen, Jr., and William Boggs Edelen). A memorial service will be held on Wednesday, July 20th at 2 o'clock at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Atlanta. The family would like to acknowledge her devoted caregiver, Linda Carter, and the staff at The Piedmont at Buckhead. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that a donation be made to the American Cancer Society.