Debbie Kelly

Growing: a Journey in Poetry Debbie Kelly

I was born Isabella Elizabeth Kelly in Renfrew, Ontario, on April 27, 1944. I lived for the first fifteen years of my life in Matawatchan, Ontario. My parents were Isabella Margret Hutson and Clifton Kelly of Matawatchan. My mother died at my birth and I was raised by an aunt and uncle, Flo and Harold Carswell. My father moved to Yukon in 1954. In 1959 my brother Brian, age seventeen, and I, age fifteen, went to live with my father and his second wife, Fran, her two children, Richard and Linda and a half-brother, Peter. We became a yours, mine and ours family. The Yukon became my adopted home and I fell madly in love with its scenic beauty and powerful presence. At this time I decided to become Debbie Mary Kelly. I finished high school in Whitehorse, worked two years for the department of education there and in 1962 returned to Ontario to work for Yukon's member of Parliament. I worked for Erik Nielsen for the next sixteen years. In 1973 I gave birth to my son, the delight of my life, Sean Gregory Kelly. In 1981 I started work in the newly established Yukon office in Ottawa, thereby retaining constant contact with my beloved Yukon Territory. These poems were written over the span of a decade, from the coast of PEI to Yukon. In many instances my poetry served as a vehicle to resolve issues, deal with pain and search out my personal truth. I think of my poems as thoughts on the road to growth and maturity.