Not seeking to slow down, Lawrence couple with connection to Santa Fe Railway spent retirement collecting antique railroad artifacts
photo by: Mike Yoder
In a West Lawrence development where all the homes look the same, Jack and Diane Kelly boast a niche and expansive collection of artifacts from the Santa Fe Railway, which makes the inside of their home anything but ordinary.
Mimbreño dinner plates, used as dining car china, sit atop the kitchen soffits. In the living room, three large cases hold books about the Santa Fe Railway’s history, as well as railway travel passes. An easel in the dining room holds Santa Fe travel posters.
photo by: Mike Yoder
Jack worked for the railroad for 35 years, and in that time, he and Diane lived in five states throughout the Midwest and Southwest. When Jack retired in 1990, and Diane retired from her job as a Realtor in Topeka two years later, the couple had already collected a few antiques related to the railway, and they decided to continue.
“I was used to going 100 miles an hour and suddenly I’m going half a mile an hour and I needed something to do,” Jack said. “I’d eaten these meals in those dining cars. I’d stayed in those hotels. I knew this history.”
The Kellys began going to antique shows and collecting artifacts, and it “snowballed” from there. Jack and Diane, now 88 and 85, respectively, showed their expansive collection to the Journal-World in June.
photo by: Mike Yoder
In the entryway to their home, the Kellys have a painting of the Grand Canyon inscribed with the name “Ford Harvey.” Ford is the son of Fred Harvey, who operated the hotels and dining rooms along the Santa Fe system and provided the food and service in Santa Fe’s dining cars.
Diane wore a “Harvey Girls” T-shirt on the day of the visit, in reference to the young women who worked for the Harvey House restaurants along the railroad. (Judy Garland starred in a 1946 musical film, “The Harvey Girls,” about the famous servers.)
As the couple displayed their house, both took great care in describing the objects in their collection, often including stories of how they found one object in particular or what its use would have been back in the day. As Jack and Diane relayed the stories, their memories from a lifetime of traveling and learning bubbled to the surface.
Highlights from the collection
In the Kellys’ living room, a Santa Fe office clock is hung on the wall above a brass counter stool from the lunchroom of Harvey’s Alvarado Hotel in Albuquerque. Next to the office clock sits a framed 1934 menu from the lunchroom. Jack said he had eaten in that lunchroom, and noted that it was possible he had sat on that very stool.
photo by: Mike Yoder
In the master bedroom, two Queen Anne tables serve as the bedside tables. One came from Harvey’s Gran Quivira Hotel in Clovis, N.M., and the second from his El Tovar Hotel, which is located on the rim of the Grand Canyon and is still in operation today.
photo by: Mike Yoder
In Jack’s office sits one of his most prized possessions: a large Santa Fe lounge car chair that was used on the Santa Fe de Luxe train. Jack purchased it from a Topeka antique dealer in 1988 and said it is acknowledged to be the only surviving Santa Fe de Luxe lounge chair.
The seat cushion, worn with use and age, is filled with horsehair.
photo by: Mike Yoder
One of Diane’s favorite acquisitions is a collection of Santa Fe calendars. The company commissioned artists to travel west and paint the scenery, and then Sante Fe would use those paintings on calendars, seeking to entice visitors. The couple have many full calendars, including one from 1912 meant to look like a rug, depicting passing trains.
photo by: Mike Yoder
‘Visiting kids and collecting railroad things’
Jack and Diane said they had fun collecting the antiques in their retirement. Diane enjoyed meeting new people and said that their travels for antiques often connected with visits to their children.
The Kellys had kids on the East and West coasts, as well as the Midwest, “so there was visiting kids and collecting railroad things,” Diane said.
One of the Kellys’ sons, Mike Kelly, was with his parents when the Journal-World viewed the collection. He highlighted the important work his father did during his career, specifying Jack’s time working as a surveyor in Arizona during the Crookton line change.
The 44-mile stretch of railway between the towns of Williams and Crookton in Arizona was originally built in the late 1800s and was windy and had many elevation changes, Mike said, causing trains to slow down and use more fuel. Jack was part of a yearlong project to straighten out that line.
“They flattened it so the trains could go much faster. But more importantly, they can do it with much less fuel,” Mike said. “To me, that was green before green was a thing.”
Prior to the change, the trains could only go about 25 miles per hour. After, they were capable of going 100 miles per hour, Jack said. Mike called it the most significant project of his father’s career, and Jack agreed.
As Jack noted during the interview, he and Diane had been used to moving quickly. When the time came to pull the brakes and slow into retirement, it wasn’t long before the couple found their next adventure: traveling the country some more to collect antiques.
photo by: Mike Yoder
photo by: Mike Yoder
photo by: Mike Yoder
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