James R. Kelly Jr., a retired federal official who helped institute outpatient treatment for military veterans who otherwise faced weeks-long stays in nursing homes, died of throat and mouth cancer on Thursday at the Casey House Hospice in Rockville. He was 68.
Before the Churchville native helped establish the federal government's adult day-care program in the early 1990s, ailing veterans went to nursing homes for weeks of costly treatment.
As a high-ranking official in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Mr. Kelly formulated an alternative: a program allowing the veterans to visit a nursing home or a VA hospital during the day and return to their homes.
The program freed thousands of veterans from burdensome hospital stays each year while saving the federal government countless dollars, said Daniel J. Schoeps, a former colleague, who is director of the VA's long-term care contracts office.
For such work, Mr. Kelly received the John Heinz Award and the Distinguished Career Award, the VA's highest honor. The National Association of Social Work named him a social work pioneer in 1997, the year he retired as director of extended care service.
Born on the family farm, the son of a dairy farmer and church singer, Mr. Kelly said jokingly that he had paid the freshman-year tuition at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service by selling Holsteins. At the school, he learned several languages.
Mr. Kelly had gone to Georgetown to become a diplomat. And after graduation, he got a glimpse of the exciting work abroad that he had longed for. While a member of U.S. Army intelligence in Heidelberg, Germany, he had reported to Washington the Soviet invasion of Hungary, said his brother, Francis P. Kelly of Bel Air.
Overseas, however, Mr. Kelly's aspirations shifted from the world abroad to home. After two years in the military, he returned to the United States and matriculated at the University of Chicago, where he received a master's degree in psychiatric social work in 1961.
As he climbed through the ranks of the VA hierarchy, Mr. Kelly cultivated interests in gardening, traveling and cooking. Friends streamed to his white-brick home in Takoma Park for paella and lamb.
Outside the windows were boxwood bushes and other examples of his horticultural interests. Some of the Japanese umbrella pines and other exotic plants were from Mr. Kelly's many trips abroad. Paris was often the home base from which he toured France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland.
In 1998, after retiring, Mr. Kelly embarked on a pilgrimage to a cathedral dedicated to St. James the Greater in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The journey, over 800 miles of mountainous terrain, took more than three months.
During the trek, Mr. Kelly found lodging by befriending folks in village squares, said Raymond E. Wanner, a retired State Department officer who first met Mr. Kelly 40 years ago. Before his death, Mr. Kelly asked family members to contact all the friends he had made during the hike - and elsewhere around the world.
A Mass of Christian burial will take place at 11 a.m. Monday at St. Ignatius Roman Catholic Church, 533 E. Jarrettsville Road, Forest Hill.
Besides his brother, Mr. Kelly is survived by sisters Catherine Ann Fitzpatrick of Harrisburg, Pa., Mary Elizabeth Caslin of Lutherville, and Rosemary Patricia Lyons of Bel Air.