Joan M. Kellett

The passing of Joan M. Kellett on Saturday July 19, 2025, at the age of 94 highlights a legacy of service that permeates Upper Merion Township. Joan is the sole woman to have served two terms as a member of the Upper Merion Board of Supervisors (1972-1984) a well as two terms on the Upper Merion Area School Board (2009-2017). As the first woman on the Board, she recounted going to Harrisburg with the four male supervisors to meet with the State Police Chief but when the door closed for the meeting, he looked at her and said, “the secretaries can leave now”. In the 1970’s Her official mail arrived addressed to John Kellett, not Joan and her name in the Almanac of Township Officials of Pa. also titled her John.

As soon as she became a resident of Upper Merion in 1960, she became involved in civic activities. First, she joined the King of Prussia Players which led to several years of teaching dramatics to children for the Upper Merion Cultural Center. When she became aware of re-zoning requests of properties neighboring Lafayette Park she became president of the Civic Association, making presentations before the all-male board to counter the possible zoning changes to higher densities. Her last battle was against the possible rezoning of the Lafayette Swim Club and former ice-skating rink to 84 town homes. Along with her husband, Dr. Carl F. Schultheis Jr. she stirred up enough community outcry for a community center and retention of the pools and rink built in the 1960’s. Joan always praised Chuck Volpi, who built her home, the pool and ice-skating rink, for keeping her summers and winters fantastic for her six children: Erin Kellett, Lee Kellett, Michael Kellett (Monika), Shannon Mastronardo (Dennis), Patricia Ehret (Patrick) and her youngest son Daniel who predeceased her.

As a member of Mother of Divine Providence Parish, Joan was the first president of the Parent Teacher’s Association. She also produced and directed the first Christmas production involving every student of the elementary school. “Christmas Around the World” was an all-encompassing venue involving the numerous Baby Boomer generation in skits, song and dance culminating in a live Nativity Scene with a Drummer Boy in tatters.

In 1966 Joan began a 40-year career teaching in the Upper Merion Area School system. Her first position was as a FLES (Foreign Language Elementary School) teacher where she taught French in every elementary school, including Swedeland and Belmont. Caley and Gulph elementary schools were built at the end of her term on the School Board. In 1971 Joan was transferred to the high school. As Chairperson of the foreign language department, she initiated the French Club as well as the Foreign Language Honor Society which both continue to this day. Her exciting creation of a field trip to Quebec for French students introduced students to shopping in a francophone Mall and supermarket, skiing at Mt. St. Anne, ice fishing, snow tubing, dogsledding and involvement in numerous historical adventures during the Quebec “Carnival” an annual carnival of parades, snow and ice sculpture competitions, tobogganing, and races across the St. Lawrence River.

Beginning in 1971 Madame Kellett organized and led trips to France for students which expanded to include neighboring European countries. After meeting many teachers from France while teaching in Senegal West Africa as a Fulbright teacher in 1991-92, she began an exchange program with French students from Nimes in the Provence. These students enjoyed Halloween and other cultural festivities depending on the time of their visit.

“Vikings Come Home” was one of her favorite creations resulting from a chance-meeting with a former student and a chat. Because his life was so interesting Madame Kellett decided that the careers of Upper Merion graduates should be shared with the community, so she initiated and produced this television interview which continued for over 25 years.

Supervisor Kellett was so concerned about preservation that she initiated the Environmental Commission as well as having clandestine meetings with Marjorie MacKaig planning how to add to her property to create what is now “The MacKaig Nature Education Center”. A large family kept her interest in recreational facilities and she also worked on acquisition of the Boat House and state property for Heuser Park.

Her retirement in 2006 at the age of 75 years was not sufficient for her. So, before her colleagues were back at UMAHS, Joan was teaching as an adjunct professor at Chestnut Hill College.

Joan lived for 60 years in the same home but moved with husband Dr. Schultheis to Florida in 2015 where she enjoyed golf and playing duplicate bridge for master points. There, in the Villages she also kept up with French with a francophone group as well as telling stories since she amassed so many, having traveled to every continent. This means she journeyed to Antarctica where she even shopped in an English weather station for souvenirs and got to use her credit card! She admits to being a shopaholic. She enjoyed viewing the ocean with summers in Sea Isle City where Joan considered herself as having a summer-job since she rented out her first-floor unit and served as chambermaid, if necessary.

Madame Kellett cherished Impressionistic Art. She attended appreciation classes at the original Barnes Foundation in Merion after school in 1989-90. In April 1990, her youngest son Daniel had a fatal accident and her grief forged the way for her competition to be a Fulbright Teacher exchange. Joan also joined Compassionate Friends, a self-help group for bereaved parents and joined Officer Les Glauner in the creation of the Daniel T. Kellett Memorial Skate Park located behind the Township Building. His memorial bench is on the Promenade in Sea Isle City and there is an award to a graduating senior football team player at Upper Merion Area High School who “gave over above” as did Danny who earned the Congressional Medal of Valor for saving a young man in a burning car.

In addition to teaching, Joan auditioned and was cast in several commercials. In the Villages in Florida, she was chosen to be in a television reality show. Along with other catastrophes, the COVID infected that proposal and it never resumed. Most recently she published her memoirs as a Christmas present for her family and friends titled “I don’t have time to die” with a subscript (Unless I complete the last item on my bucket list which is to get a hole-in-one because I probably will drop dead happily from shock).

Joan will be missed by her 14 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren with her 20th due in October but has reunited with her parents, David and Gertrude Silva, son, Daniel T. Kellett, grandson, Keith Mastronardo, brother, Thomas Silva, and husbands, Lee J. Kellett, and Dr. Carl F. Schultheis Jr.

Joan’s Funeral Mass will be held at Mother of Divine Providence Church, 333 Allendale Rd., King of Prussia, PA on Friday, August 22, 2025 at 10:00am, a eulogy will be said at 9:50am. Inurnment will be at Valley Forge Memorial Gardens in King of Prussia, PA.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital www.st.jude.org and/or the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania www.chop.edu/giving

Arrangements by The Bacchi Funeral Home & Crematory, Ltd., Bridgeport, PA

Condolences to the family at www.bacchifh.com