Longtime Monmouth Beach resident Mary Eileen Kelly passed away peacefully on March 30 at Care One King James in Atlantic Highlands. She was 92.

“She enjoyed swimming at the Red Bank YMCA with friends and socializing at the Monmouth Beach Club.
Mary Eileen enjoyed drawing, painting, sculpting, and making ceramics. She was a congregation member at St. Michael’s in West Long Branch where she served as a Stephen Minister.
She had been a parishioner of Church of the Precious Blood in Monmouth Beach
for many years.”

Loved ones of Mary Eileen Kelly in her obituary

Born in Jersey City to the late Robert Henry and Mary Cecilia Doherty (née O’Neill), Mary Eileen graduated from St. Dominic Academy in Jersey City and attended Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art.

She eventually moved to Middletown with her husband Jack to raise their family. There they were active members of St. Mary’s Church. Further along in life, she worked as an interior decorator as she raised her children. .

Mary Eileen is predeceased by her husband John A. Kelly, her daughter and son-in-law Barbara and Paul O’Rourke, her brothers Robert and Daniel Doherty along with their spouses, her sister Gertrude Pezzutti, and her son-in-law Kevin Moran.

Surviving are her children and their spouses: Joanne Kelly and Donald Delli Paoli of Holmdel, Jackie and Nick West of Colts Neck, Sean and Karen Kelly of Oregon, Janet Kelly of Red Bank, and Mary Ellen Moran of Atlantic Highlands. She is also survived by eighteen grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren, with two more on the way.

A memorial gathering will take place at Church of the Precious Blood, Monmouth Beach, on Wednesday, April 7, from 9 to 10 a.m. with a memorial mass to begin at 10. Burial will follow at Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Middletown, where Mary Eileen will rest alongside her beloved husband Jack.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be sent in Mary Eileen’s memory to Deborah Heart & Lung Center via Deborah Hospital Foundation, 212 Trenton Road, Browns Mills, NJ 08015, www.deborahfoundation.org.

— Edited obituary provided to John E. Day Funeral Home from family