Sylvia Kelley

1932 - 2025

KELLEY, Sylvia Sanders

Born August 25, 1932, Sylvia Sanders Kelley, died on March 8, 2025.

While an early leader in advancing women's rights and the right of women to be Christian ministers, Sylvia Kelley also was a wise educator; inspiring poet; and loving wife, mother, and grandmother. She pursued her passion for theological education and advanced, critical thinking to bring about freedom, justice, and equality for all people.

Sylvia was the daughter of Marthame Elliott Sanders and Florrie Wilkes Sanders, and grew up in the Ansley Park neighborhood of Atlanta, along with sister, Angelyn, and brother, Marty.

After completing Washington Seminary High School, she graduated from Vanderbilt University Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1954. Selected as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, she subsequently received her M.A. in history at the University of Texas.

Sylvia was a Rockefeller Fellow at Yale Divinity School in 1957. Deciding not to pursue a career as a Christian minister, she later taught history at The Westminster Schools in Atlanta. It was around this time that she met Blaine Kelley, Jr., and they married in 1959.

Sylvia and Blaine were devoted partners through 65 years of loving marriage. They served as active advisory board members of several educational institutions, including Vanderbilt Divinity School, Duke University School of Public Policy, Harvard Divinity School, Martin Luther King Jr. Board of Sponsors of Morehouse College, and Emory University.

Through her board involvement, Sylvia demonstrated her commitment to the development of women as leaders in many ways. In 1973, she founded the Antoinette Brown Lectureship at Vanderbilt Divinity School, providing over 50 years of programming in honor of the first woman ordained as a Christian minister in the United States. In 1989, she established the Sylvia Sanders Kelley Endowment for Women in Leadership through the Fund for Theological Education, and later the Sylvia and Blaine Kelley Fund for Lay Theological Education at Columbia Seminary. She and her mother, Florrie, also co-founded the annual Wilkes Prize at Vanderbilt Law School, honoring the University's most outstanding law professor.

Throughout her life, Sylvia's inspiring thoughts were expressed through her love of language in her poetry and writing. Her poems cheered her father's battalion in England in World War II asked insightful questions about contemporary culture and were used by Atlanta's Mayor to help inspire an end to the Gulf War in 2002.

Above all, Sylvia provided unconditional love for her family. She is survived by her husband, Blaine Kelley Jr.; children: Katharine Kelley and Chad Riedel, Blaine Kelley III and Martha Nelson Kelley, Alan Kelley and Kristin Pedersen; and by grandchildren: Andy, Caroline and Will Riedel, Lenoir, Frances and Gwyn Kelley, and Keegan and Aidan Pedersen. Sylvia and Blaine lived for many years in the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta, until moving to the Lenbrook retirement community.

A Celebration of Life service will be held at Trinity Presbyterian Church, on Howell Mill Road, at 11:00 AM, on Friday, April 4. A reception will follow.

Gifts, in lieu of flowers, may be sent to the Antoinette Brown Lecture Fund at Vanderbilt Divinity School.