Ever wonder what was on the property where UMass Amherst is today, before the university was built? Part of the campus’s land belonged to great-grandpa Patrick Kelley, born in Iron Mills, County Kerry, Ireland, in 1855. He immigrated to the United States and purchased farmland along the fertile Connecticut River basin adjacent to the Massachusetts Agricultural College, now known as the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The Kelley family has been an integral part of the UMass Amherst story ever since.

Where residence halls in the Southwest Residential Center now tower, the Kelley family once tended hay fields. Where cranes are currently at work building the new power plant, they grew corn. And where Massachusetts Avenue heads out of campus toward Route 116, the Kelleys planted fields of cucumbers and tobacco.

Over the years, as the university needed more space to accommodate growth, Kelley land was added to the expanding campus. But the Kelley family continued to farm the land surrounding the university, and amazingly, almost all family members still work on the farm regularly, when crops come in and to staff the farm stand in summertime. A large number of Kelleys are also alumni, forming an impressive legacy family.

Of the present generation, nine members attended UMass Amherst: John S. Kelley III ’82 and his wife, Marci (Wysocki) Kelley ’92 (who live in the original farmhouse); Ed Kelley Jr. ’77; Patrick J. Kelley ’86; William Kelley ’91, Bridget Kelley ’93, Stuart Zerneri ’75; Joe Tamsey ’82; and Kathleen Kelley;. Currently, Steve Zerneri ’07 and Scott Zerneri ’10 are enrolled at the university, and Paul Kelley works in research on campus.

You never really leave UMass Amherst. It remains part of your life, though your relationship to it changes. The Kelley family has been intertwined with the university over the course of several generations, and the relationship will continue for generations to come. The UMass Amherst Alumni Association is proud of its legacy families like the Kelleys.