Dorothy Elaine (Suzy) Kelsey of Paris passed away at Paris Regional Medical Center on Saturday, March 27. She was ninety years old.
Services are scheduled by Fry-Gibbs Funeral Home for Wednesday, March 31, at Deport United Methodist Church, at 2:00 P.M., with the Rev. Vivian Crowson and the Rev. Nancy Russell officiating. Visitation will be held one hour prior to the service. Services will also be available by livestreaming FUMCDeport Facebook page. Graveside service and burial will follow at Highland Cemetery in Deport.
Suzy was born on September 1, 1930, in Commerce, Texas, to Travis Hughes and Mozelle Russell Hughes. After moving around during the Depression from one school district to another, the family settled in Deport, Texas, where her father became superintendent of Deport schools in the forties. There she met her future husband, Sam B. Kelsey. Suzy graduated from Deport High School in 1947. After she married Sam on March 26, 1948, she returned to classes at Paris Junior College and the school’s women’s basketball team, and he returned to Texas A&M to finish his degree in veterinary medicine. They lived in Paris for one year before returning to Deport, where Dr. Kelsey established his own animal clinic and practiced for over 50 years.
Sam and Suzy were married for 66 years before his death in November of 2014. They had two children, Connie and Joe Travis. Suzy became her husband’s receptionist in his one-man clinic, dutifully answering the ever-ringing phone, sending him out on his next “call” to see a sick cow or horse, and then making appointments at the clinic for the next ailing cat or dog. All the while, she was carrying on in her “job” as a homemaker and taxi-driver for her active daughter and son. Suzy was a member of Deport United Methodist Church for over 75 years and sang in the choir, often as a member of duets, exhibiting her beautiful voice. She was supportive of the school activities of her children, serving as PTA officer, scout leader, and “basketball” mother to two kids devoted to the sport in a “basketball crazy” town in the sixties.
Suzy was preceded in death by her parents; her sister, Janita Richardson; her husband, Dr. Kelsey; and a grandson, Joseph Dodd. She is survived by her daughter, Connie Dodd, and husband, Travis (Skip), of Paris; her son, Joe Travis Kelsey, and wife, Kim, of Bogata. Surviving her also are grandsons, Philip Dodd, of Ft. Worth, and Carter Kelsey and wife, Keely, of Deport; and great-granddaughters, Kylie and Chloe. She is also survived by her brother, Dr. Gaylon Hughes and wife, Mary, of Pearland; her niece, Leigh Lehmann and husband, Michael, of Pearland; her niece, Amy Pendergraft, of Van Vleck; her nieces, Marilyn Glover and Betsy Chapman and husband, Jerome, of Deport; her nephew, David Glover, and partner, Jorge Martinez, of Dallas; and several other cousins, nieces, nephews, grand-nieces, and grand-nephews.
Special thanks from the family go to the staff at Brentwood Terrace and especially to Nicole Blake and Cathey Williams.
The family asks that memorials be made to Highland Cemetery in Deport or First United Methodist Church in Deport.
