Maxine Kelly Bainbridge Erikson

Maxine Marie Kelly was born March 9, 1928 in Faulkton, South Dakota, a small town in the middle of the state. She was the youngest child of Sigrid and Mathew James Kelly and the baby sister of Bernard Kelly, Helen Kelly Lowe, Richard Kelly, El Nore Kelly Sorum, and Ethel Kelly Vogeler.

After graduating from Aberdeen High School in Aberdeen, South Dakota in 1946, she studied to become a hairdresser but later found her calling in the field of nursing in San Pedro, California. Maxine began her nursing career in the early 1960s at Seacrest Convalescent Hospital and after a few years transferred to San Pedro Community Hospital, where she worked until her retirement in the early 1980s.

In her younger years, Maxine loved to listen and dance to the sounds of the big band era, especially the music of Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, the Andrews Sisters, Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby. She was also, without meaning any disparity, a Little League mom, president of the PTA and a volunteer election official. She lived her final years in Tulare, California with her loving and caring niece, Laura Gadke.
In those later years, she listened to 1940s music and Dr. McGee on the radio, watched baseball games on TV, contributed to her church's programs feeding the hungry, and she remained politically active as a member of the Tulare Republican Women's Club.

In a lifetime that spanned 84 years, Maxine was married three times- first to Cecil (Bud) Fisher, second to Wilfred (Booty) Bainbridge, and finally to Howard Erikson, All of her siblings and former husbands are deceased. She will be missed by her three children (Dennis, Clark, and Kelly Bainbridge), her daughters-in-law, her seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, and numberous nieces, nephews, and friends.

Maxine died from melanoma at Laura's home surrounded by family on December 30, 2012.

Funeral Home:
Green Hills Mortuary and Memorial Chapel
27501 S.Western Ave.
Rancho Palos Verdes, CA
US 90275