Fr Frank Cresp, Good and Faithful Servants: Recalling the Spirit of the Deceased Priests of the Diocese of Port Augusta and Port Pirie 1888-2008, 2008:
Kelly, Patrick Leo

Born: 30/6/1873 at Mintaro, SA.
Attended Sisters of St Joseph and CBC Adelaide. First class honours in Maths at University of Adelaide. Joined Government Survey Department. Some years surveying pastoral leases between Hergot Springs (Marree) and Innamincka. He fixed on the map the exact position of the 'Dig Tree' and Burke's grave. Studied at Manly, NSW.
Ordained: 17/8/1902 at Manly, NSW.
Came to Port Lincoln in 1904 as Assistant to Peder Jorgensen. Became Parish Priest of Port Lincoln 1916. 34 years on Eyre Peninsula.
Died: 21/10/1943 in Adelaide. Remains later transferred to Port Lincoln Church Yard.

Memories: Fathers Patrick Leo Kelly and Peder Jorgensen
from The Southern Cross 1911.

Catholics in the City and in the country districts who live within a hundred miles of their Priest can scarcely realise the difficulties experienced in times of sickness by the Catholics in the Port Lincoln parish, some of whom live 560 miles from others, and at times the same distance from their priests.

The difficulties experienced by the late Mr John Cash furnish a typical case. His first difficulty was to find the whereabouts of the priest. This was settled by a reply to Streaky Bay from headquarters in Port Lincoln stating that he was somewhere in the Franklin Harbour district. Immediately after receipt of this reply, another difficulty, quite unexpected, arose - the telegraph line became interrupted near Sheringa, rendering telegraphic communication with Cowell impossible for the greater part of a day. Eventually the telegram got through to Cowell, only to find that Father Kelly was thirty miles away in the back country between Cleve and Arno. "Deliver message at all costs" settled that difficulty; a motor car was secured and the message was delivered to the priest at Mr Leonard's home. Mass was celebrated here for the dying man; then the priest, having thrown aside all superfluous weight, fodder etc, set out alone towards the western sandhills. To race death with a pair of horses for 170 miles cross-country was now the proposition. Everything depended on the pair of horses, for there is no house, no sign of habitation on the lonely, heavy, sandy span of 62 miles between Cleve and Terre. At midnight the pair had passed through the sand, and before sunrise they had pulled up at the Talia eating-house.

"Money couldn't buy those horses now," said the priest, as he unharnessed the pair, after travelling 112 miles in nineteen hours, over a villainous track.

At Talia, Messrs H Crowder and P Boylan supplied a fresh pair for the thirty three mile stage to 'Oakfront', the house of Mr Dennis Murphy. Here all difficulties were ended, for that large-hearted pioneer, all the year around, keeps a pair of Father Jorgensen's horses, in the pink of condition, ready at a moment's notice to run to the far West Coast. There was not ten minutes delay; little time was taken for the last twenty-four miles over splendid road; the well-known chestnuts soon dashed into Streaky Bay, to the delight of the dying man, who from the verandah was the first to see and announce the arrival of the priest, who had been driving continuously for 29 hours. The last Sacraments were administered eight hours before death came along.

At the funeral next evening in Calca, Father Kelly referred to the beautiful ending to the well-spent life of his dear friend who had endeavoured during life to be faithful in every particular to the teachings of the Church.

He was rewarded in the end by overcoming all difficulties, and living for a day longer that the doctor declared possible, he was enabled to receive the Last Sacraments, when humanly speaking, such seemed impossible.

John Cash died 18th May, 1911. Aged 46 years.

(Reproduced with the approval of Sister Mary Cresp RSM)