SARATOGA SPRINGS — William Thomas Kelley, Jr., 75, died Thursday, October 17, after a battle with Wegener’s Granulomatosis.
He was the son of W.T. Kelley, Sr. and Annie Rae Kindley Kelley and born on February 28, 1938 at the home place at Stony Point, Greenwood County, South Carolina.
In addition to his parents, he was predeceased by two sisters, Mary Elizabeth Kelley of Greenwood, South Carolina, and Evelyn Anne Kelley Ballenger of Pinebluff North Carolina.
He and Rose Marie Duell were married on October 8, 1961 at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Saratoga Springs.
They have three children, Kimberly Marie Kelley (Jim Sumner), Orlando Florida, W. Thomas Kelley III, Richmond, Virginia and Anita Lynn Kelley of Albany.
Other survivors include brothers-in-law, Rev. Donald Ballenger of Pinebluff, North Carolina, Earl Duell (Shirley) of Saratoga Springs, George Duell, Sr., (deceased) (Dorothy), sisters-in law Betty Pisano, Fort Edward, Edie Fitzgerald (Greg) of Wilton, many nieces and nephews, and good friend John Peck.
He attended schools in Greenwood County South Carolina, graduating from Greenwood High School June 2, 1955 and attended Lander College 1957-1959. He also attended Electrician’s Mate “A” School, Submarine School, Basic Nuclear Power School, Sound Power Analysts/Isolation as Navy schools.
Tom also completed Famous Artist Correspondence School, and many technical training classes for collision repair and painting and an in-house training class for Better Business Management Skills sponsored by Jarvis tools.
He was in the U.S. Navy nuclear powered submarine program 1959-1963 and was in the commissioning crew of the USS Barb SSN 596, which was commissioned July 24, 1963. He was Electricians Mate 2nd Class. USS Barb was a sister boat to the USS Thresher, which was the first nuclear powered sub to sink. Barb was scheduled for initial sea trial when Thresher sank in the North Atlantic. Interest in submarines? A submarine is the only boat designed to sink and come back up!
He was on the high school track team two years and was line captain for two of the three years he worked in the high school cafeteria.
Tom worked several odd jobs during school, including driving a SC school bus, cleanup crew at Greenwood Mills, Mack Stevenson’s garage and “grew up” in his father’s general repair shop, learning to repair auto radiators beginning at age five. He also worked at Greenwood Specialty Company from 1955-1959.
After his service time, he worked at several body shops and garages and at GE in Schenectady, Ballston Machine Tools in Ballston Spa, and Jarvis Tools in Greenwood, South Carolina. After many years of being a “backyard boy”, in 1970 he started Superior Coach Body Shop in Saratoga Springs, owning/operating that until selling in 1999 to Richard Magnell. After retirement, he took up loafing full time and discovered that he had finally found something he was good at!
In addition to cars, he had many interests, which included (but are not limited to) art, reading, (especially history) wood working and leather craft. For more than 50 years he hand tooled many leather projects and made scores of little leather animals. In the last few years he found an interest in things on the internet and enjoyed friends from around the world on Facebook.
Online remembrances may be made at www.burkefuneralhome.com.
