James Christopher Kelly

James Christopher Kelly was born Seamus Christopher Kelly to parents Lawrence & Mary Kelly on Dec. 19, 1935 near Kildare Town in County Kildare, Republic of Ireland. After finishing high school, Seamus became a student at University College Galway. Seamus dropped out after less than 2 years at UCG, and many years later said he did not feel that his rural high school had properly prepared him for a major Irish university. Seamus grew up on a farm, and, helping out when he was a young lad, he felt he was not cut out to be a farmer. Feeling that his only option was to become a farmer if he stayed in Ireland, at just 19 years old he decided to sail to New Zealand after hearing that one of his neighbors was really enjoying living there. At first, Seamus worked any job he could get in Auckland. but relatively quickly got a semi-regular job on a passenger ship. He got married to Jan Gummer when he was 21 years old, and eventually had two sons and two daughters with her: Susan (who passed away in 2008), Michael, Dean (who tragically passed away in a mysterious accident in 1980), and Tracy (who died of heart condition in 1986). After a few years working on the passenger ship, he got a job as flight attendant with TEAL, now Air New Zealand. He did that for the next 12 years or so, but his marriage to Jan did not work out, and he eventually took a two-year “posting” with ANZ in Los Angeles. On one of the flights he was working in 1968, he met Esther, and they began dating. One of Esther’s conditions in order to marry Seamus was that he would commit his life to serving Jesus Christ. This was a big deal for Seamus because Catholicism was a big part of the Irish identity, but, after attending several church services with Esther and also attending a very moving Billy Graham service, he decided to become a Christian, and was until the day he died. In 1969, Seamus’s posting with Air New Zealand was up, but he had already asked Esther to marry him, so he decided to move to the US permanently, which meant giving up his job with Air New Zealand, and, around this time, he also changed his name to James. Esther and James got married on Aug. 22, 1970, and eventually had two sons: Brian and Sean. Jim got a job with an airline catering firm in El Segundo called “ARA Services,” where he worked until he was laid off in 1984. After searching for a job for many months, Esther’s income was not enough to pay all of the family’s bills, and Jim felt desperate to do anything he could to provide for his family, so he decided to open his own deli, Kelly’s Korner, which is still a going concern to this day. He worked there until about 2019, when it became difficult for him to continue standing all day. Jim died on Jan. 5, 2024. The cause of his death is still unclear.