OBITUARY

Chef used food to bridge community gaps

Maggie Angst
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Longtime Salvation Army volunteer Gus Kelly smiles as he sits in the dining room waiting for the truck to arrive with donated food on in December 2013 for the Salvation Army of Milwaukee County's annual Christmas Family Feast.

Gus Kelly loved a great meal, but more than cooking it — he loved watching how it brought people together.

After more than 40 years of bringing people together, Kelly, 76, died from lung cancer early Tuesday morning.

"He looked at food as an opportunity to care and nurture," said his daughter, Chanin Kelly-Rae. "He hoped to use food as a way to bring people together and bridge the gaps in the community."

Kelly owned his own Southern-style buffet restaurant — Magnolia's on North Ave., he was hired to redesign the U.S. Air Force food service program at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio and he was founder of Gus' BBQ stand at Maier Festival Park, which became a "must-have" during summer lakefront festivals.

He was the chief chef at the Martin Luther King Jr. celebration downtown, head caterer for Miller Brewing and executive chef at the annual Salvation Army Christmas Family Feast, according to Kelly-Rae

"It didn't matter if you were rich or poor, white or black, had nothing or plenty, he wanted to use food as a way for people to get to know and understand one another," Kelly-Rae said.

Kelly was born and raised in Brookhaven, Miss., with nine siblings, in the era of racial segregation. He graduated from Alcorn State University in Mississippi in 1965 and moved to Milwaukee with his family as part of the great migration.

He came from a family of cooks — his mother owned a soul food restaurant in Milwaukee and his father was a cook on the railroad.

Kelly met his wife, Mary, in Milwaukee and the two got married in 1967. They had six children and a number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Kelly-Rae said.

He earned his master's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Stout in culinary arts and hotel and restaurant management in 1975.

Kelly taught culinary arts for a year at UW-Stout and then returned to Milwaukee to teach at Milwaukee Area Technical College. After nearly 20 years of teaching, he became a dean of culinary arts in 1995.

"My father was not concerned about leaving a legacy," Kelly-Rae said. "He wanted to leave the world a better place than he was born into and live up to the Martin Luther King Jr. message of a better union."

Seeking to avoid Milwaukee's racial issues, Kelly-Rae said she moved to Seattle after college and tried to persuade her father to join her. But he wanted to stay, she said, and was thankful that he was able to provide for his family in the city and didn't want to leave it behind.

"My father wanted to be one of the people in some way to change that," Kelly-Rae said. "He always said, teach them how to do it and then coach them through it."

Kelly mentored people and trained chefs in Milwaukee and across the country. He valued education and believed you could use an education as a vehicle to do just about anything in life, Kelly-Rae said.

While studying at UW-Stout, Kelly met two of his best friends, Mike Koehn and Bob Ilk.

The three all went on to work at Milwaukee Area Technical College and eventually created a business.

"Our families kind of morphed together as one," Ilk said. "There wasn't much we didn't do together over those 46 years."

Kelly and Ilk taught and created the one-year diploma program in culinary arts at MATC, while Koehn worked as a district food service manager for the college.

Kelly played a major role in placing students because he was well-known in the industry and his credibility as a chef was unchallenged, Ilk said.

"He gave so unselfishly — time, talent and treasure," Ilk said. "When we ran into students, they never forgot Gus."

Their business was named "Ethnic Enterprises," and they consulted organizers and vendors at almost all the ethnic festivals on the Summerfest grounds for nearly 15 years.

In addition to consulting, the three friends catered events at the Pabst Pavilion, Miller Brewing and celebrations for some of the state's top dignitaries, including former Gov. Tommy Thompson.

Kelly's favorite type of food to prepare was soul food. He described it as a mix of German and Irish-style cooking that they had down south, Koehn said.

He knew everything about slow cooking, making the sauces and the different cooking styles from around the country, Koehn said.

"He wasn't just a cook, but a well-trained chef," Koehn said. "He could do simple food to very expensive cooking."

According to Koehn, people saw Kelly as a person with high integrity and a "labor of love."

"He never wanted the limelight," Ilk said. "He was always like, let's get in, let's get the job done, serve good food and good service and then sneak out."

"He was a better person than he was anything else. There will never be another individual so kind and loving and giving," Ilk said.

Kelly is survived by his six children — Larry Benjamin, Anthony Kelly Sr., Veronica Kelly, Chanin Kelly-Rae, Dedrie Kelly Baldwin and Orin Kelly Sr.

Kelly's family is having a small, private ceremony on Friday morning, where he will be laid to rest beside his wife, Mary Ann Kelly, who preceded him in death in January 2007.