It’s No Load to Carry Around: A Special Tribute to Bill Kelly!! Most of us knew William (Bill) Kelly as a trucker. He operated his own truck for many years and always kept it well maintained and in the best of shape. My last time talking to him was on Hinds Brook Road this past summer. I was driving towards Howley from my cabin at Deep Cove. He was stopped talking to someone. He was operating a truck for Mike Kelly and Sons in Howley. We chatted for a few minutes near the waste disposal site. I was surprised to see him driving because I was out of the province for most of the summer and the last I heard he was in hospital. We discussed how he was doing and he was glad to be working and feeling better. I had some vegetables aboard from my garden in the Codroy Valley and I knew he loved fresh vegetables so I gave him some for him and Susie to cook. He and I were alike in that we both loved to grow things in our garden. His grandfather Edward Kelly took a stroke while working in his garden. It came as a shock to me when I learned that he had passed away shortly after that encounter. I knew Bill when I was growing up and he would come to our house to visit my grandparents. I can recall being in to the Goose Steady area on the snowmobile with my grandfather who was cutting wood and hauling it. My Uncle Bern was there helping him and I can recall Bill coming there with a horse and sleigh and getting wood. I can recall him delivering groceries around town for his dad when he operated a store at the other end of town. He would do for his dad what Uncle Tom Woolridge would do for Wellon’s Store years before. His dad later bought a pickup truck and Bill drove it doing the same but I can assure you the speed of delivery was substantially faster with Bill’s foot on the gas pedal. Bill worked in the woods like so many young people from Howley. My grandfather was reported to have operated the first snowmobile that came into the country for Bowaters. I am told that Bill Kelly from Howley operated the first timber jack or skidder. I can recall seeing several photos of him using the machine on display at the Roy Whalen Heritage Centre in Deer Lake. Bill left this type of work and purchased a dump truck later and that is how most of us remembered him. I went to university in 1972 and when I came home for breaks I would sometimes visit Bill. He lived in a trailer that was parked on Mike Kelly’s land where Aunt Bride lived at one time. We would enjoy having a chat and a beverage together and he would encourage me to get my education. In fact he encouraged me to get all I could get because in his words it was “no load to carry around”. I guess he meant that unlike the heavy work he was use to a good education would be a good means to earn a living. In going around the district when I was the MHA I would always run across someone who would ask me if I knew a certain Kelly in Howley. So many said they stayed at my Grandmother’s house at one time. One couple from Pollard’s Point said they spent their honeymoon there. Most however, would ask me if I knew Bill Kelly. They would want to know what he was up to and if he was still driving his truck and what a nice person he was. The true mark of a person is not on their occupation or their education they have received, but in how they treat others. Bill Kelly was always a considerate and very compassionate man who would do anything he could for you. When my Uncle Bern was paralyzed and lived with grandmother and me, Bill always came to visit. He also visited him many times in Bern’s caboose he had in Howley and at the O’Connell Centre in Corner Brook. Like my grandfather, Bill loved his snowmobile which reminded me so much of the one my grandfather drove. One of my favorite memories is when Bill came to my cabin one winter and took Dick Parsons and several of our friends on a ride around the lake in that machine. The sounds and smells of being on that ride reminded me of pleasant memories with my own grandfather’s snowmobile. It was a beautiful but cold sunny winter day and the sun just glistened on the snow covered lake and I can still hear the wails of laughter from within the machine. Bill was seventy-three years old when the final stage of his human journey closed. Both Bill and Susan had spent forty years together in a loving, caring and a very special relationship. They had experienced some of life’s greatest pleasures through raising kids and experiencing the absolute joys of being grandparents. I can still recall the funeral procession heading to the cemetery and passing Bill’s dump truck and all those trucks belonging to Mike Kelly and Sons on the side of the road. It was such a special and touching tribute to a man they obviously held in very high esteem. Bill you were absolutely right in that a good education is no load to carry around. Our lives, however, were greatly enhanced by the experiences and warmth that we encountered through having shared a part of it with you. In the words of Cicero, “the life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living”. This is why the Howley Heritage page is so important in keeping those memories alive. A short video of a very young Bill Kelly using an early chain saw to cut fire wood is available through clicking on this link. Let’s keep his memory and those of other special people from this beautiful community alive as well. https://facebook/photo.php?v=620133378061450&set=vb.100001943816731&type=2&theater
Posted on: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 17:00:41 +0000
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