- Date Of Birth: May 26, 1926
- Date Of Death: May 18, 2019
- State: Colorado
C.E. Thomas Kelsey was born on May 26, 1926 to the late Clarence Kelsey and Elizabeth Walsh Kelsey in Flagstaff AZ. He passed away at age 92 in his Aurora CO home on May 18, 2019. He was preceded in death by his wife of 60 years, Teresa Woodman Kelsey, his son, Tom Kelsey and his sisters, Sr Mary Catherine SCC and Lorraine McCabe.
Tom is survived by his seven remaining children: his son Jim Kelsey (Jessica) and their daughters Kayla, Sarah and Taylor; his daughter Virginia Holzman Kelsey whom he lived with the past 13 years; his daughter Teresa Ball and her son WT; his daughter Katie Thompson (Darrell); his daughter Judy Dmohowski (Andy) and their daughters Emily, Elise (Greg) and their children Owen, Eivin and Scarlett; and Leah (Will) and their son Andrew; his daughter Sue Roybal and her children, David, Mike (Jennifer); TJ (Tiffany) and their children Austin, Cole, Jake, and Bella; Leann Bramlett and her children Zach, Autumn, Reece, Maribel and Anthony; Laurie Netherly (Michael) and their children Blaise, Aydin, Addison,, Eland and Lincoln; his daughter Mary Tokarski (Tom) and their daughters Rachel, Lexy, Anne Miller (Andy) and their daughter Beth; Christine Papaianopol (Sorin) and their sons Mike, Cristopher and Nick; Heidi Kabadi (Sajit) and their daughters Mary, Teresa and Ella.
Tom graduated early in December of 1943 from Regis High School in Denver CO and immediately enlisted in the US Navy where he served in the South Pacific until the end of World War II. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering in three years from the University of Colorado, Boulder using the GI Bill. While a student, he married Teresa Woodman on December 27, 1947.
With the degree in hand, he began a ten-year career with the Square D Company of Denver. He transitioned from the shop floor into industrial sales which involved a move to Albuquerque NM. He was hired away from his Square D position by General Electric, upon recognizing him as their biggest sales competition in the territory. That required moving his family of nine back to Denver. He was quite successful in his 25+ year career with GE and retired in his sixties with an early retirement buyout. He enjoyed his pension benefits for more than 30 years.
With his marriage into the Woodman family, Tom assimilated their passion for the Grand Lake CO area. Tom and Teresa enjoyed all of their family vacations in Grand Lake, even while living in New Mexico. He never lost his affection for fishing in Grand Lake. As a newly minted son-in-law, he had been introduced to fishing by the patriarch of the Woodman family, Guy Woodman. He learned to fish and became quite skilled fishing Colorado spinners in the beaver dams, creeks and rivers of Rocky Mountain National Park and carried on that tradition with his own children and grandchildren. To him, fishing the Colorado spinner was the only way to fish for trout and he stayed true to his belief until he hung up his creel in his late 80s. (We all learned early on that to fish with him often meant long hikes off the beaten path where an appreciation of nature became natural to us.)
Freshly retired, Tom turned to woodworking; furniture building with his Shop Smith was his specialty. As his workshops diminished in size, he turned to building birdhouses from a variety of wood sources, building whirligigs, and he became interested and accomplished in whittling figurines. Most all of his output are now family heirlooms.
Their dream of having a mountain cabin in Grand Lake was achieved in partnership with Teresa’s brother, Bernard and his wife Ruth. Our Place was the center of good times and recreation for all their families.
While Grand Lake was special, the bedrock of Tom and Teresa was always about faith and family. This was truly the hallmark of their lives. Faith and family…
