Act of kindness on expressway ends in death

To his boss, Joseph Kelly Sr. was "one of a kind."

A neighbor in Levittown said Kelly "would come over and help me do anything."

And to his family, he was a model father and grandfather who gave without conditions.

It therefore surprised none who knew Joe Kelly that he had stopped along the Vine Street Expressway in the wee hours yesterday to help a homeless man in a wheelchair marooned on the median.

For Kelly, 55, it was a typical act of kindness - but it cost him his life. He and the unidentified homeless man died instantly when a truck struck them shortly before 2 a.m.

"One of his sons told me, 'A hundred people must have passed that guy without helping,' " said Jack Stango, manager of Marine Guard Service, a shipping transport company for which Kelly drove. "But Joe would always stop and help people. He was one of a kind, Joe."

Tall, lean and friendly, Kelly had just delivered an ailing seaman from Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Camden to the Best Western Center City Hotel on 22d Street. He was headed home to Bucks County when an incredible sight made him pull over.

It was a man in a wheelchair, moving along the center median of the expressway into the face of eastbound traffic.

As vehicles whizzed past, Kelly pulled his white, 15-seat Dodge van to the right shoulder. Stopping near the 15th Street exit ramp, he crossed three lanes on foot.

The men were still beside the median as a Lincoln MKX slowed in a right lane. It then was struck by a Ford 250 pickup that may have swerved or tried to pass, said Sgt. Albert Gramlich of the police Accident Investigation Division.

The pickup then careened into Kelly and the homeless man, described by police only as a black man about 40 with a light complexion.

The name of the pickup driver was not immediately released. No charges had been filed yesterday.

Kelly was uniformly remembered yesterday as a man for whom others always came first.

"Nothing was too much trouble. He'd find the time to help anybody," said his sister, Delores Ferber. "If he had it, he would give it."

Nodding and clutching her face to keep back tears was his former wife, Barbara, 56, who called Kelly "a good father [and] grandfather."

She stood outside the house in Olney where the couple lived until a few years ago. She was ringed by family and friends, all showing grief and pride.

Jeannie Moore, 51, a neighbor on Rosemar Street, recalled the Kellys' keeping her children when Moore was having a difficult pregnancy. "Mr. Kelly even drove me home in his limo when one of my sons was born," Moore said.

Kelly, an Army veteran, had been a professional driver before taking his job with Marine Guard Service. There, he frequently took sailors and other crew members to hospitals or hotels when they were sick or needed lodging.

He had met his wife in Germany during a nine-year Army stint there. Their daughter, Dianne, was flying back yesterday from Germany to be with the family. The Kellys also have two sons, Joseph Jr. and Steven.

Handy with tools and things mechanical, Kelly frequently mended or installed items for friends and neighbors.

"Just last year he put three ceiling fans in my house as a favor," said Stango, one of his bosses.

After his marriage broke up, Kelly moved in with Joe Jr. and his son's fiancee in Levittown, where neighbors saw his generous spirit.

John Wright, 50, who lived across Holly Drive, said Kelly once disassembled a neighbor's noisy pool filter "and went on the computer to find out what's wrong with the motor. Sure enough, he figured it out.

"I'd say 'Joe, I can't move this bundle of shingles.' He'd come over and pick them up, even though he's older than me. He would help me do anything."

However tragic, it was fitting that Kelly had died in a gesture of charity, his loved ones said.

"He died helping. He was always helping," said his brother Dan, 60, one of four siblings.

Added Kelly's son Steven: "He put his life in jeopardy in the middle of the expressway to save someone. That was the way he was."