CityView Magazine

34 June 2021 Fascinating FAYETTEVILLE W henever you saw the front door of her Dobbin Avenue home open, you always were welcome. And off to the sunroom Rosalie Huske Kelly would escort you for coffee or tea or perhaps a glass of white wine, and certainly for conversation about Fayetteville history that was so dear to her heart. Our city's "First Lady of History," Bill Hurley, the late city mayor, affectionately described Rosalie Huske Kelly, and most appropriately so. "Rosalie was an ambassador for her beloved historic Fayetteville," says Bruce Daws, director of the Fayetteville Area Transportation and Local History Museum. "Conducting tours, giving programs and promoting the city's rich heritage." Her passion for this city's history was boundless. Her knowledge, too. Rosalie Huske was born July 13, 1930, the middle daughter of William Oliver Huske and Jean Ashcra Huske. ey reared their girls in the white brick, two-story home with the green shutters along Rush Road, which affectionately came to be known in the neighborhood as Sunny Pines. It's where her mother, an avid gardener, nurtured those beautiful rose gardens, and where the Huske daughters spent endless hours in their childhood playhouse in the backyard. William Huske worked along with his three brothers at Huske Hardware House in the family business started by his father, the same Huske Hardware Restaurant & Brewery in the same location by the second set of railway tracks along Hay Street. For Rosalie, Jean and Patricia Huske, it was a happy childhood with friends and Sunday mornings at St. John's Episcopal Church. Rosalie Huske was a popular student at Fayetteville High School, and aer graduation she enrolled at Saint Mary's Junior College in Raleigh and later graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She married Dr. Richard Sterling Kelly Jr., a pediatrician, and the couple reared five children of their own. "She was a happy person," says Dr. William Huske Kelly, who followed in his father's footsteps as a pediatrician. "ere were not many people she didn't like." Rosalie Huske Kelly shared her happiness with friends such as Mary Stewart, Mary Giles Rose, Eleanor McDonald, Stuart Kerr, Reggie Barton and her first cousin John Huske. Dr. Billy Kelly and his sister Robin Kelly Our 'first lady of history' BY BILL KIRBY JR. PHOTOGRAPHY BY CINDY BURNHAM Our 'first lady of history' BY BILL KIRBY JR. PHOTOGRAPHY BY CINDY BURNHAM

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