Kelley Andrews

Kelley Andrews, a longtime federal worker and loving mother known for her passion for books and gardening as well as her graceful personal style, died September 10, 2024. She was 80.

The cause was complications from Interstitial Lung Disease.

Though Kelley lived her final years in Delaware, she was born in Providence, RI in April of 1944 and resided in several places throughout the East Coast. She spent the largest part of her life in the Washington, D.C. area, where she married and raised her surviving son, Samuel Timberg.

Kelley’s career spanned a range of federal jobs, in both the legislative and executive branches, where she earned a reputation as an avid public servant with a knack for networking across both parties. Along the way she developed a deep rolodex of friends and contacts in a more convivial, bipartisan era in Washington. She is remembered warmly there for her poise, grace and sharp wit.

In her private time, Kelley was a voracious reader who also loved classical music, the arts and culture in many forms — passions she passed along to her son and three stepchildren from the previous marriage of her husband, journalist and author Robert Timberg, who passed away in 2016. They divorced in 2006.

Kelley was born the daughter of Richard Meredith Andrews, Jr and Gertrude Frances Schofield, of Uxbridge, MA., and spent her childhood in Quincy, MA, Philadelphia, PA, Tazewell, VA, and Poughkeepsie, NY, where she attended the Oakwood Friends School before graduating from Harriton High School in 1961. She went on to the University of Delaware, where she majored in French. She also spent several memorable weeks as a young woman in Paris, polishing her language skills and exploring that city’s many splendors.

She moved to Washington after graduation and started her 40-year career in public service, first working in the office of New York Senator Jacob Javits for eight years. She credits her time working with Senator Javits for awakening her social conscience which drove her career in the decades to come.

Kelley later joined Congressman Norman Minetas office as his Legislative Director before advancing her career at the prestigious Harvard Kennedy School where she received a masters degree in public administration and was awarded the Littauer Fellowship.

She also worked in the Transportation and Labor departments during the Reagan Administration. Her distinguished career culminated with an appointment to Senior Executive Service by Secretary of Labor, Elaine Chao, where she was named Director of the Office of Enforcement and International Union Audits ahead of her retirement in 2007.

Though she worked mainly for Republicans in Washington, Kelley joined the Democratic Party later in life.

Throughout her career in the Federal Government, Kelley received numerous awards, including an Urban Mass Transit Administration Administrators Award of Merit in 1976, a Special Act of Exemplary Nature award in 1987, and a Special Achievement Award in 1989.

While living in Cambridge, Mass., in 1979, Kelley met Robert Timberg, a retired Marine officer and Vietnam Veteran who in his second career as an accomplished journalist was studying as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. The couple were married in 1981 and settled in Bethesda, MD. In 1984 the joy of her life, her son Sam, was born.

Kelley was a lifelong world traveler visiting England, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Spain, Argentina, and South Africa.

She also was a caring and indefatigable baseball and ice hockey mom driving Sam up and down the East Coast for games and cheering on all his achievements on the ice and field and throughout his academic studies. A lifelong dog lover she adored her two standard French poodles, Bella and Frankie and would walk two miles a day with the rambunctious duo each morning during her retirement.

In retirement, Kelley moved back to Delaware in 2007, settling in a lovely home in Greenville, where she spent many happy days tending her garden and visiting with her sister Diane “Dee” Richardson, a fellow lover of dogs and the arts who died in March. Kelley also indulged her passions for reading, writing, and classical music. Most rewarding for her was realizing a long-held dream to work as a guide at the Winterthur Museum where she led tours and brought the museum to life for visitors for over a decade. Kelley spent her final years at Stonegates, a senior living community in Greenville.

Kelley is survived by her son, Sam Timberg of Brooklyn, NY, her stepson Craig Timberg of Washington, DC, her stepdaughter, Amanda Timberg of London, England, two half-brothers, several nieces and nephews, and four adored step-grandchildren. Kelley was preceded in death by her parents, brother Scot “ Andrews and sister Dee Richardson.

Funeral Services will be held at Christ Church Christiana Hundred on October 19, 2024, at 11:30AM in Greenville, DE.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a contribution to Faithful Friends in Wilmington, DE or another no-kill animal shelter. (https://faithfulfriends.us/)