Sometime after the death of Sam's father in 1871 and his mother's second marriage to Dolph Davis, Sam went to live with other family members, as was the custom in those days. He was poorly educated, so may have spelled his middle name as "Millican."

Sam was living in NE when he married his first wife Della Bowen on 29 Feb. 1888, which was a leap year, in Worth Co., MO. On that marriage application he was "Samuel M. Kelley." It was sometime after that that he decided to drop the second "e" in "Kelley." They began farming near Harrisburg, Banner Co., NE. After Della died from complications of childbirth leaving him with two small daughters in 1889, he m. Jennie in 1893 and started a second family.
When I first saw Sam, I was a preschooler. I remember being fascinated by his western-style white moustache. Moustaches like that weren't common in the 1940's in the Los Angeles area, so I'd never seen anyone in person with that kind of a moustache before. His was very white. My parents had invited him and Jennie for a visit. Sam got a big kick out of visiting Knott's Berry Farm. He was especially amused by the dental office with a man yelling loudly via a recording while getting a tooth pulled. I guess that was pretty much the way it was before dentists filled cavities. Sam had had some of his teeth pulled while living in western Nebraska.

According to my father, one of his favorite sayings to keep things running smoothly on the farm was "work before pleasure."

The daughters from the m. to Della Bowen were Gladys (Kelly) Darnall & Coral I. Kelly. The children from the m. to Jennie were Glenn Curtis Kelly, Earl L. Kelly, Ernest Kelly, Myrtle (d. at birth in 1899),Vern O. Kelly, Lillian Tempest (Kelly) Gable, LaVera Jennie "Vera" (Kelly) Feidler Peregrine, Clifford Samuel Kelly, and Ester Kelly (b. 23 March 1915, then d. as a baby after catching German measles from Glenn & Earl. According to Aunt Lillian (Kelly) Gable, Ester was a pretty blond baby.)
Pictured left to right: Samuel, Gladys in rear, Ernest in front, Vern by Gladys, Earl in front, Glenn in rear, and Jennie holding Lillian.