Obituary for Paul Joseph Kelly at Caul's Funeral Home (2024)

Paul Joseph Kelly

July 5, 1938 - November 15, 2023

Passed peacefully away after a short illness, on November 15, 2023, Paul Joseph Kelly, at the age of 85.

Predeceased by his infant son Joseph in 1968.
Leaving to mourn, wife Janet (nee McGrath), sons Paul (Valerie) and Shane (Keri), daughters Sheila (Ed), Kim and Anita. Grandchildren Erin, Liam, Jonah, Cheyenne, Rafaela, Katelin, Jake, Joseph, Eloise and Jorja. Friends Luke and Kaylen Janes.

Born into a large family in Argentia, Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, his family was forced to move up the road to Freshwater when the U.S Naval Base was constructed in 1941. He always felt privileged to have grown up near the base and often spoke of how much he enjoyed going back and forth on his bicycle for ice cream and movies.

He attended high school at St Bonaventure’s in St John’s as a boarding student. He often recited long streams of classic poetry from memory, some 70 years after learning the verses. Never cared much for the brothers that ran it, he said.

In 1961, he married Janet McGrath, began a family and shortly after, founded Bridgett’s Pub on Cookstown Rd. He always said his secret to success was good service and clean washrooms.

He and Janet instilled a healthy work ethic in all of their children and they were all experienced bartenders, toilet cleaners and wall scrubbers by the age of nine or ten. Plenty of school days were missed while they learned how to pour drinks, stock coolers, roll quarters from the pool tables, play darts and pinball, and listen to stories told by the old farts sitting at the bar. They were instructed, in the event the liquor inspector made an appearance, to run downstairs and hide in the chill room.

He was an avid outdoorsman, log cabin builder, angler and hunter. Picture a cross between Paul Bunyan and The Mad Trapper. His favourite place in this world was to be sitting on a hill near his cabin at Tomack Lake, spying moose through his binoculars. He would take his children out of school every September for a couple of weeks to go moose hunting, despite getting plenty of pushback from the teachers and principals. It wasn’t up for discussion. He felt that it was at least as important, if not more , than whatever was going on in a classroom. No argument there. In fact, he took his young kids everywhere he went. Fury’s, The Fort Motel, The Tudor Inn. Many bags of Hawkin’s cheezies and glasses of fountain co*ke were consumed.

In his early forties, after being introduced to motorcycling by his son, he became a lifelong motorcyclist and completed, among others, two cross Canada trips. More recently, in the summer, a few times a week, he would go to Tim’s for coffee and a sandwich, but would ride to the one in Whitbourne. Or out to Placentia and the Cape Shore, where he grew up. He rode motorbikes up until the age of 84 and enjoyed it immensely.

He loved his garden. He enjoyed berry picking. He was a dedicated cook and prepared most of the meals in the Kelly household for decades. He was a pretty decent carpenter too and was still erecting and climbing scaffolds into his eighties.

Despite moving to town for good shortly after high school, he remained a big, tough bayman. He lived life on his own terms, suffered no fools and took sh*t from nobody. Ever.
He did, however, also possess a wonderful sense of humour and a penchant for general foolishness. There are more than a couple of pictures of him wearing the tea cozy on his head and speaking a few verses of Latin. A few years ago, he was trying out a new, rather chatty barber, who asked him how he wanted his haircut. He replied, “Preferably in silence!”

He was unconventional, unapologetic and famously intolerant.
But if he chose you as a friend, then you got a good one.
He was a fabulous father.

As his mother was fond of saying when one of her boys went astray, “He’s as good as he is bad.”
He was. And we shall miss him.

Cremation has taken place and as per his request, there will not be a funeral service. Friends of the family are invited to attend a gathering to celebrate his life, to be held on Sunday Nov 26, 2023 from 1:30-3:30pm at The Pippy Park Golf Course Club House, 460 Allandale Rd, St John ‘s , NL.

The family would also like to express our sincere gratitude to community nurse Fatima Mansaray for her thoughtful care and advice throughout his illness. And a heartfelt thank you to the Palliative Care team at the Dr. L. A. Miller Center.