Obituary of Kathleen Violet Keleny Williams
Kathleen wished that her passing
be recorded with a sense of thanksgiving
and indeed celebration for a
long and full life. She was a lifelong
Vegetarian, a musician, a traveller, a
people person, an organiser, a comforter
and a garden lover who always
chose to look on the positive side of
life.
She was a lively ‘teenager’ not so
dissimilar to teenagers today. She
lived life to the full. She had an Ivy
motorbike at 15 and was the life and
soul of what ever was going on. She
developed an interest in horticulture
from frequent visits to the
Birmingham Botanical Gardens.
This was the start of a continuous
love affair with organic gardening,
which was to remain her main and
constant love throughout her life. No
matter what the weather, she would
be in the garden every day doing
something. She planned early which
parts of the garden would be rotated
for which crops, and seeds were
always ordered well before the new
year.
A chance meeting whilst playing
tennis in 1933 led to her first marriage.
Her partner, Frank Kenneth
Mayo happened to mention that he
was a vegetarian and that was that…
They were married in Sept 1934 at
The Methodist Church in Four Oaks.
Kathleen and Frank decided to
move to Gloucestershire to set up an
organic fruit farm. Eventually they
found Coombe Lodge with 4 acres in
which to set out their dream early in
1951. In April, only a few weeks
after moving to Coombe Lodge,
tragedy struck. Frank, who had had
to attend a meeting in London,
became ill with an infection and died
within a very few days, leaving
Kathleen a widow with 2 young children,
Pamela and Chris, in a new
home, in a town where she had not
had a moment to get to make new
friends.
She had not reckoned on Wotton’s
welcome. Before long, several
Wottonians appeared on her doorstep
and offered their friendship and support.
In true character she soon
became involved in Wotton life. The
Horticultural Society was an obvious
one to join and she gave talks,
became the president of The Save the
Children Fund, and was involved in
the Red Cross and many other organisations.
Kathleen used the benefit of her
large home as a Vegetarian Guest
House to invite friends to enjoy the
wonderful scenery of Wotton and the
Cotswolds. She studied whole food
diets at the Bircher Benner Clinic in
Zurich. She was involved in many
International Vegetarian Congresses.
At one such gathering in Sweden she
met Dr Eugene Keleny who, in
1957, married Kathleen at The
Friends’ Meeting House in St
Martins Lane, Ealing and came to
live in Wotton.
The Vegetarian Guest House was
busy, she gave talks all over
Gloucestershire about the herbs
which had become rather more than
a hobby. She took up Yoga qualifying
as a teacher. She held classes in
Wotton and in several of the surrounding
towns and organised yoga
weekends at the house.
Eugene died in 1972 leaving her a
widow for the second time.
However, she still carried on with all
these activities, talks, Yoga, the guest
house, and her organic garden, not
forgetting the herbs.
A retired Anglican Vicar, Owen
Williams came to the Guest House in
an attempt to restore his health. He
had suffered from T B in his early
days, and had lost one lung. He had
been told to expect only a year or
two to live. However Kathleen had
other ideas. They were married at the
Friends Meeting House in
Nailsworth in 1974. He was to live
on for 20 more years under her care.
After her 80th birthday party, the
family tried to get Kathleen to retire.
She agreed, but reneged on this within
days, taking on more talks and
Yoga. It was evident that the work in
maintaining the house and garden
was now just a little too much for
even Kathleen and Owen to cope
with. The adjacent flat was renovated
and they moved in to what was a
much more manageable situation.
Her son Chris and daughter-in-law
Sylvia took over the Vegetarian
Guest House and ran it very successfully
for some 10 years.
Owen lived on until 1994, when
Kathleen was widowed for a third
time.
Again, after achieving the ripe old
age of 90, efforts were made to persuade
Kathleen to take things a little
quieter. It was not until December
2000 that she decided to move to The
Court Retirement Home.
She was now 94 nearly 95 and
mercifully painlessly passed away in
her sleep.
“You can shed tears that she is
gone, or you can smile because she
has lived”
C J Mayo
5 Jacobs Close,
TETBURY, GL8 8RE.
April 2003
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