Marie Gorham

MARIE ELLIS "YEI" KELLY GORHAMJuly 1, 1923-August 7, 2012Yei passed away suddenly on Tuesday, August 7, 2012 from complications of a cerebral stroke at the Heart Hospital in Albuquerque. She was born in the old St. Vincent Hospital in Santa Fe to parents Daniel T. Kelly and Margaret Gross Kelly, and grew up in Santa Fe with her sister Caroline Linton Kelly, and brothers Henry Warren Kelly, Daniel Thomas "Bud" Kelly Jr., Mark Gross Kelly, and William Booker Kelly. Yei attended the Loretto Academy for Girls, Villa Duchene in St. Louis, and The Shipley School for Girls in Philadelphia. Upon graduation, she attended Pine Manor Junior College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Yei studied ballet and dreamed of dancing professionally, but traded her fantasy in for the reality of falling in love. She married a handsome Tenth Mountain Division ski trooper named Frank Devore Gorham Jr. from St. Louis, Missouri on September 1, 1947 at the St Francis Cathedral Chapel followed by a festive reception in the Kelly family home on Palace Avenue. After a short honeymoon in Taos and Colorado Springs, Yei and Frank moved to the jungle of Venezuela near Maracaibo and Quiri Quiri where Frank was employed as an exploration geologist for the Creole Petroleum Company. She would often reminisce about the rigors of traveling from Caracas to Miami via freighter, and on to New York, Albuquerque, and finally Santa Fe, to deliver her first two children in the old St. Vincent Hospital on Palace Avenue. After three years of quonset hut existence in the jungle, Frank and Yei moved to Denver with their young family for several years, and then finally settled in Albuquerque where Frank became the head geologist for the newly formed oil and gas exploration subsidiary of the Public Service Co. of New Mexico known as Pubco Petroleum. In Albuquerque, the Gorham family of four became a family of seven with five boys keeping Yei and Frank occupied beyond their wildest imaginations. Ski trips, backpacking excursions, endless school activities and nightly "Darwinian" style dinners of enormous proportions kept her tethered to the role of "Ma", "Mom", "Mammy", "Hagamus Bagamus" and Chef de Cuisine, around the clock, seven days a week. Yei loved her sons, guarded them jealously from female suitors, and became the legendary mother of "The Gorham Boys". "I don't know how she did it!" was a familiar refrain heard frequently from friends, neighbors, teachers, and police officers during her life. An amazing leap of faith, enormous courage, a great sense of humor and a mild case of insanity were required to accomplish what she did during her lifetime. Her devotion to the Catholic Church and friendships with a number of inspirational "Padres" from her beloved Immaculate Conception Church in Albuquerque helped guide her along the way. Yei was passionate about art, the New Mexico Symphony, The Santa Fe Opera, the lives of the Saints and Apostles, The Carmelites, and she loved to travel, especially to Florence, where she and Frank would revisit the Tuscan towns and villages of his wartime past. Yei and Frank spent considerable time at their "Riva Ridge Ranch" which they built over thirty years near the town of Philipsburg, Montana, and both were responsible for the creation of the Frank D. Gorham Jr. and Marie Kelly Gorham Charitable Foundation that has bequeathed substantial sums to New Mexico non-profit organizations around the state for many years. She is survived by her five sons: Mark Linton Gorham, his wife Ingrid, and daughters Anika and Krista; Robert "Berto" Hawley Gorham II, his wife Barbara, and their children Anthony and Olivia; Timothy Walker Gorham, his wife Susan, his children David and Laura; Daniel Kelly Gorham, his son Will and daughter-in-law, Heidi; and Frank Devore Gorham III, his wife Ramsay, and their sons Hunter and Walker, and Walker's wife, Rebecca. Yei is also survived by her brothers, Daniel T. "Bud" Kelly Jr., Mark Gross Kelly, brother-in-law, William S. Gorham, and his wife Jean. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to charities of benefactor's preference. A Funeral Mass will be held on Saturday, August 25, 2012 at Immaculate Conception Church, 619 Copper Ave. NW in Albuquerque at 10:30 a.m., preceded by a 10:00 a.m. Rosary.