Lydia M. Kelley

Lydia Mae Kelley, 80, passed away on June 5, 2026, after a life lived with unyielding determination to experience the world and share its beauty and glory with those she loved. She lived life head on, staring down hard days to savor the good ones.

Lydia was born on December 10, 1945, in Gladstone, MI, the daughter of Lydia Helen (Seely) MacKenzie and Irvin James MacKenzie. The youngest of seven daughters and her mother’s namesake, Lydia was almost immediately nicknamed “Sweetie Pi” by her father and older sisters. The name stuck and her family and friends affectionately called her “Pi” into adulthood (“Aunt Pi” to her dozens of nieces and nephews).

Lydia grew up in post-war America, a daughter of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Her father, a gregarious spirit welcomed widely in taverns and hunting camps, earned a living driving a truck and delivering heating oil across the U.P. Her mother, Lydia, raised seven daughters, growing much of the family’s food in a large garden, sewing her girls’ clothes, and passing on to each a determined spirit and deep connection to one another. The MacKenzie family lived in a modest home near the railroad tracks in Gladstone, within view of Lake Michigan’s Little Bay de Noc. In later years, Pi recalled the day of her youth when indoor plumbing was installed in the family home.

From her mother, Pi acquired a resolute spirit, fierce independence, and a practical sensibility she would pass on to her children and grandchildren. After graduating from Gladstone High School in 1965, Pi moved to Milwaukee, WI where she attended beauty school. On a December night on the east side of Milwaukee, an engineering student named Dan E Kelley crashed Pi’s birthday party and sometime later married the birthday girl. Pi worked for a Milwaukee optometrist while Dan completed his degree at Milwaukee School of Engineering. They married on July 6, 1968. Pi was 22; Dan was 21.

Over the next 56 years, Dan and Lydia (called “Kelley” and “Pi” by one another and loved ones) raised three children and four bird dogs and built a life together in Wisconsin. They instilled in their children a love for the outdoors, building family bonds while camping, downhill skiing, canoeing and hiking, and epic road trips across the American West in the family station wagon.

Dan and Pi’s first son, Matthew Dan, was born in 1970. In 1971, Dan was drafted into the U.S. Army and sent to Vietnam. After returning home, Dan resumed his career as an engineer. Pi became pregnant for the second time. The couple was informed on the day Pi went into labor – July 8, 1974 – that they would have twins. Their son, David E Kelley, was born a few minutes ahead of his sister, Casey Ann. The family lived during those early years in a walk-up flat on Milwaukee’s east side and in a duplex in Muskego, WI. They later moved to Appleton, WI. In 1981, the family moved to Wales, WI. Pi worked as an optometry technician during this period.

Dan and Pi raised their family and made a home in Wales for over 35 years, collecting friends and new hobbies all the while. Pi loved Christmas, warm blankets, crisp cold Diet Coke, and most anything sweet (especially Nutty Buddy Bars). She enjoyed cooking and baking, one of many activities she shared with her niece and life-long devoted friend, Linda (Schilz) Gniotczynski. And to the end, she rooted hard for the Green Bay Packers, usually seated inches from a television screen so she could see the action.

Throughout, Dan and Pi faced life’s challenges together and head-on. When Dan was drafted into the Army, Lydia moved with their infant son to a ramshackle apartment in Kentucky so that the family could be together during basic training. When Pi was diagnosed with breast cancer in her 40’s, she and Dan stayed focused on raising their kids, through tortuous treatments and enduring side effects. When Pi suddenly and inexplicably lost much of her vision, Dan drove her to Florida to seek specialty care.

Even after cancer, losing most of her vision, and other physical challenges, Pi resolutely pursued the things that gave her joy. She continued to downhill ski even while legally blind, with Dan close behind guiding her turns with voice signals and a watchful eye.

From a hospital bed, near the end of his life, Dan reflected on their journey. “It was her and I against the world,” he said. “Always was.”

During their final years, Dan and Pi lived in Montana, near their oldest son’s family and the mountains that gave them joy. They continued to take long road trips together, exploring from the Florida Keys to the California coast.

Pi is survived by her three children: Casey Krueger, and her husband, Brian; David Kelley, and his wife, Angie; and Matthew Kelley, and his wife, Catherine. Dan and Pi’s ultimate joy in life was their nine grandchildren: Ethan, Grace, Owen, Claire, Kelley, Laila, William, Charlotte, and Henry. After her passing, one granddaughter recalled: “She reminded me to never give up the things that make me who I am, even if the world says otherwise.”

Pi was preceded in death by her husband, Dan (September 2024), her mother and father and five sisters: Betty Fassbender, Ann Schilz, Jean Dubord, Jackie Brown, and Joyce Meyer. Her sister, Lettie Houghton, still lives in the U.P.

A scattering of Pi’s and Dan’s ashes will take place somewhere in the mountains, sometime in the future.

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