At the end of my college years, I was living with Nancy. We first had an apartment in Culver City and then in West Los Angeles on Venice Blvd. These were some fun years; dating, vacationing, going to the beach, and eating at TITO’S! While I was finishing my BA degree I had a substitute teaching job with the Los Angeles Children’s Centers. I mostly worked with the pre-school children. I really enjoyed it and it allowed me time to take off and travel. In about 1973 Nancy moved to Laguna Niguel to live with her sister. I had my brother Ken move in with me as I could not afford the apartment on my own. It was during this time that I started dating Tim Kelly.
My friend Debbie Hanowell lived in the Oakridge Garden Apartments on Sepulveda Blvd. near Venice Blvd. She invited me over one evening for cheese and wine and said she would invite two guys from the apartment also and I could see if I liked either one of them! I immediately was attracted to Kelly, however, I don’t think he felt the same. A couple of weeks later Debbie told me that Kelly had invited her to a party, but she declined and told him I would probably like to go. So he called me. I asked him his last name and he told me it was “Kelly”. I said, “Your name is Kelly Kelly?” Then he told me his name was Tim Kelly but all his friends called him Kelly. We went to the party together and then continued to date after. We had some ups and downs during the next year. A couple of times we broke up because he felt like he wanted to date other girls. I stuck it out and we ended up getting engaged and then married August 23, 1975.
We bought our first house in Chatsworth, CA. It was on Nevada street but I don’t remember the address. We were there about a year and then moved to Westchester to be closer to our jobs. We lived on 82nd Street. I continued to work for the Children’s Centers and Kelly worked for two different camera stores off and on. He would go back and forth to whoever would pay him the most money! One was Jack’s Camera in Beverly Hills and the other was Parkwood Camera in West LA.
In 1978 we moved to Santa Maria, CA to open our own camera store, Village Camera in Orcutt. Kelly had gone to high school there, so he already knew a lot of people. I was about 5 months pregnant with Quinn. We bought a new home on Ocotillo St. It was a lot of work because we had to add window treatments, landscaping, etc.
Kelly hired a 16 year old girl, Debbie Jones, to help at the store. Her father, Ed Jones, was the bishop of the Santa Maria 4th ward. Long story short, soon the missionaries were knocking at our door; we took the discussions, both agreed that we believed what we were being taught and were baptized in 1979.
My mother was baptized shortly after us and actually went through the temple before us.
Our first friends in the church were the Wells family, Richard and Jakie and their kids Janet, Rick, Eric and Chad. We had a lot of fun with them and often went to their “cabin” at Lake Nacimiento to water ski and swim in the lake.
After about 3 years in Santa Maria, we had to declare bankruptcy and then moved to Newbury Park. Morgan was just 3 months old. Kelly took a job at Woodland Hills Camera, then Pan Pacific Camera in Los Angeles. After a few years, (I’m not sure how long) he went to work for Samy’s Camera in Los Angeles.
Kelly worked hard and I was able to stay home with the kids. Doug was born in Thousand Oaks. We had many friends from church and in the neighborhood. The Muse’s, Francom’s, Gholdston’s, Nacagawa’s, Jorgensen’s, Palmer’s and Andersen’s, just to name a few! These years were pretty good for us. Again, some ups and downs, but basically we were happy.
