Otis Kelley was born July 21, 1869, the last child of Eliza and William Kelley. Otis shared a similar childhood to his siblings, attending school in Mendocino and college in the Bay Area. Unlike his sisters and older brother, Otis didn’t tour Europe as a young adult, instead choosing to live in San Francisco and work with his uncle, Samuel Blair, as an accountant.
Otis visited Mendocino frequently, enough so that he wooed a young Annie McGuire. In 1894, newspapers in San Francisco and Ukiah (but notably not in Mendocino) ran the headline “ARRESTED AT THE RACES, Otis Kelley Wanted by the Authorities of Mendocino. The Young Man’s Cousin, William S. Blair, Makes a Vain Attempt to Free the Prisoner.”
Rose McGuire, Annie’s mother, had taken out a warrant against Otis, accusing him of seducing Annie and leaving her pregnant. Histories passed down charge that Otis promised Annie he would marry her after learning of her pregnancy but then changed his mind. Otis was taken to jail briefly before being freed on $2,000 bail. Their first child, Lloyd, was born the following year.
Following this drama, “Miss Annie McGuire” continued to be mentioned in attendance at balls and parties in Mendocino. The mother and son lived with Rose. The couple’s story picks back up when they married two years later. Despite a tumultuous start to their relationship, they appear to have been a good match. Annie gave birth to eight children: Lloyd, Richard, Margaret, Carroll, James, Mervyn, Katherine, and Gordon. They lived in a home in San Francisco purchased for them by Otis’s sister, Elise Drexler.
Despite living in the city, the Kelleys were regularly in Mendocino. Otis lived in sister Daisy’s home on Albion Street for two years in the early 1920s, while she and cousin Jennie Blair traveled internationally. Carroll Kelley married a Mendocino native, Clyta Reese, who worked for Daisy. Aunt Elise doted on Otis’s children; four of them lived in the home she bought for them until the last passed in the 1980s.
Without Otis and Annie’s children, there would be no Kelley descendants today. In 1927, Richard Kelley married Anna Leighton. Their youngest child, Rosemary, would inherit items from nearly every member of the extended Kelley family, which she donated to the Kelley House Museum. This collection includes photographs, letters, diaries, and more. As the great-granddaughter of William and Eliza, Rosemary’s contribution to the Kelley House is unmatched.
Kelley House Museum curator Averee McNear writes a weekly column on Mendocino County history for Mendocino Voice. To learn more, visit kelleyhousemuseum.org.