His site with a memorial from his daughter.
On October 2, we lost one of the greatest of the Greatest Generation.Tom Kelly. The Colonel. Daddy to me. And ’Ol Tom to his grandchildren.It is impossible to capture 99 years or what he meant to our family, his friends, his troops and his loyal Legion of followers in a few words.But I wanted to share a little about the remarkable man we were so lucky to know and love.To the members of the Tenth Legion, thank you for the friendship, the support and the respect you have shown him for decades. It means more than you know.
Tom may be gone, but his stories will live on through all of you and through generations of turkey hunters to come.
Notice of his passing from Jim Casada.
Jim added a comment to this post which is how I found out about his passing. Thanks, Jim.
I corresponded with Tom a little bit when I was in the states. I was as interested in his snipe stories as much as his turkey ones. I sent him some material on snipe including a poem from an English author on missing snipe. He asked me if he could have it done up and framed which he didn’t need to do. It shows some of his character that he asked.
I loved his stories. For me, since I have never hunted turkeys, I replaced turkeys with deer in my head because his stories were universal in capturing moments of the hunt. I consider him one of the best hunting writers of the 20th century. He may not of created turkey hunting literature but he defined it.
I have many of his books and still remember seeing, The Season, on the shelves at Barnes and Noble in MA. I bought one and sent it to him to sign. I should have bought them all since after his first book it was the one many wanted. It was one of the few that was printed by a publisher and it disappeared into remainder purgatory.
Note some of the posts are where Steve references a friend with the same name.