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| Kelly Reynolds gesturing during his Henry Plant program at WRA Chapel, 2004 |
Although he was raised on the east coast and attended
Eaglebrook School at Deerfield, Massachusetts, Kelly Reynolds moved to Hudson
in 1949 when his parents bought the Nathan P. Seymour House on Prospect Street,
the house that has been owned by Western Reserve Academy since 1994. His father, Clarence Reynolds, was a DuPont
executive, while his mother, Juanita Walker Reynolds, was a native of
Mississippi, related to President James Knox Polk, and had an interest in the
arts which she seems to have passed along to her son, Kelly. There were also two daughters in the family,
one of whom attended Laurel School.
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| The Nathan B. Seymour House at 15 Prospect
Street where the Reynolds family lived, 1949-1964 |
While at Western Reserve Academy, Kelly was described as
“one of Reserve’s colorful characters” and regularly appeared in various
Christmas plays and dramas, such as they were in the 1950’s. He played young Abe Lincoln in “A Story Told
in Indiana” in 1954, a play directed by Mrs. Hallowell (wife of the Headmaster)
and featuring Andrew C. Ford ‘55 as Johnny Appleseed. The summer before his senior year Kelly went
on a hitch-hiking tour of the west, had an appendectomy in El Paso, and had to
be sent home on a train. He ignored the
school regulations and took a car full of fellow students to a game at
University School in Shaker Heights, and got into deep trouble with the
administration, an episode recorded in his essay, “Confessions of a Day Boy” in
Without Reserve, the book published in 2005.
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| Kelly Reynolds as a senior at Western Reserve Academy, 1954 |
Kelly went on to Stanford where he studied drama, but earned
his B.A. at San Francisco State where he majored in English literature which he
later taught in Florida. After spending
about six years as a social worker in New York City (where his widowed father
lived), he went to Florida in 1970 with his wife, Reda, and their young son to
live in Bradenton where he spent the rest of his life. He taught at St. Stephen’s Episcopal School
and later at the University of South Florida. He became interested in the life of Henry Plant, a pioneer railroad
builder, who opened the west coast of Florida to development. Kelly had already portrayed Sen. Claude
Pepper from the FDR era, and in the late 1990’s brought Henry Plant to life as
a character and traveled around the state portraying the Gilded Age millionaire
empire builder.
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| Kelly Reynolds as Henry Plant, the Gilded Age Florida millionaire |
His show was a popular attraction from Key West to Hilton Head
(and all the places in between) and he even brought a shortened version to WRA
one year for Reunion. A book followed,
published by the Florida Historical Society, and can be found in the John D.
Ong Library. In later years, Kelly and
Reda raised whippet dogs for racing on their six-acre farm near Bradenton. Kelly died in late 2018 at age 83.
His mother, Juanita, was very interested in the arts and was
somehow a friend of noted book artist, Tasha Tudor (1915-2008) who visited the
Reynolds house in Hudson in 1964, just before the house was sold to the Burnham
family. A charming Christmas card was
done by artist Tudor featuring the stairway of the house and the entrance hall
decked out with a tree and other ornaments and enjoyed by a number of children
coming down the stairway. I believe that
Hudson children may have posed for this card which was shown in a story about a
visit to the Reynolds house in the Indianapolis Star paper. A group from the Indianapolis Museum of Art
had been visitors to the house. Interesting
to note that Wilbur D. Peat, a former Head of that museum, had once taught art
at Western Reserve Academy.
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| Tasha Tudor’s Christmas card showing the hallway and stairway at the Nathan P. Seymour House when it was owned by the Reynolds family; card dates from 1963 or '64 |
