Woman Who Lived on Schooner 4 Decades Dies

Barbara Kelley, an independent woman who eschewed a conventional home for a 52-foot wooden-hulled schooner in Wilmington, died recently of bone cancer. She was 73.

Mrs. Kelley, who was featured in January in a Times article on people who live aboard their boats, lived on the Gypsy Clipper for more than four decades. When her husband died more than 10 years ago, Mrs. Kelley remained, caring for the sails and varnishing the wood to ensure that the schooner would have a long life at sea.

So it was appropriate, her brother said, that when Mrs. Kelley died last week, she spent her last moments aboard the Gypsy Clipper.

“The love she had for that boat stemmed from the love she had for her husband,” said her brother, Paul Robinson, 67, of Harbor Gateway. “The boat was all she had left of him.”

Mrs. Kelley and her husband, Vernon, moved aboard the ship soon after they married in 1953. The two often hoisted the schooner’s sails to ride the afternoon sea breeze off the Southern California coast.

After she was found to have cancer several weeks ago, family members stayed with her around the clock to ensure that she could remain aboard the boat she loved most.

After a memorial service Friday, flowers were placed atop the ship’s stern and cabin, and relatives motored the Gypsy Clipper around harbor waters. As the boat passed, other sailors paid tribute to Mrs. Kelley by waving and honking their boats’ horns. The family says the Gypsy Clipper is part of Mrs. Kelley’s estate and they have not determined what will become of it.

Mrs. Kelley’s ashes will be scattered at sea, near the waters where her husband’s ashes were scattered a decade ago.

She is survived by Robinson; her sister, Virginia Harshman, 74, of Rialto; and her son, Richard Hulett, 55, of San Pedro; and two granddaughters.