EVERETT – Friends say no one who ever met Kelly O’Neil Henson is likely to forget her.
She was the kind of person who made friends out of strangers in no time at all.
Henson grew up in Everett and became a professional photographer, specializing in sailboat races. A sailor herself, she photographed boating at its best from Victoria, B.C., to San Francisco and Hawaii to New Zealand.
She was injured in a traffic accident on her way to a grocery store near her home in Auburn on Feb. 22. A car had hit a delivery truck broadside, and the truck overturned onto Henson’s sport utility vehicle. She never regained consciousness, and died Tuesday at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. She was 46.
Henson’s death was a double blow to her parents, William and Nina O’Neil of Everett. The eldest of their seven children, Willy O’Neil, 48, died in January in a hunting trip accident in Eastern Washington. Friends described him as a man with incredible energy who had so much to do he seldom slept or stopped.
His sister, the third of the seven siblings, was somewhat the same.
“She lived about five lives in her 46 years,” said Kathy Schalka Marvin of Kirkland, an Everett dentist.
Marvin and Henson grew up together and were best friends from age 6, when they rode horses together. They later were classmates at Everett High School.
“She’s just a fixture in my life. She was my maid of honor, I was hers. She was there when my children were born. We always equated her to a Labrador. Everybody loved her, and she loved them. I met my husband through her. She’d walk up to a crowd of people, and all of a sudden she’d know them all and the next thing you know, they’d all be at a party at our house. I just can’t imagine her not being around.”
“Bill and Nina did such a great job in raising their kids. They did something right. They were interesting, caring people.
Edwina Downes of Everett also had known Henson for more than 40 years.
Henson was so popular that nurses at Harborview said they’d never seen anything like the turnout of friends and relatives who showed up to support Henson and encourage her to fight to survive the brain injuries she suffered in the accident, said Edwina Downes, an intensive care nurse in Everett and life-long friend.
“Everyone you talk to about her, everyone who’s ever come in contact with this woman walks away with a smile. She was up for everything, whether it was prudent or not. From truth-or-dare sessions we had in fourth grade to stealing plywood for the homecoming displays at Everett High – the midnight lumber club – she was amazing,” Downes said.
Three hours after Henson died, the nurses were still pretty shaken, Downes said.
“There was talk about having to get Safeco Field to handle the parking,” Henson’s brother Jim O’Neil said. “We had some levity during the week. Kelly would have wanted it that way.”
Downes described Henson as very funny and extremely talented, not only at sailing and photography, but at anything she tried.
“She would go with such gusto and do it until she was good at it, from kickball to volleyball to photography,” Downes said. After graduating from Everett High School in 1975, Henson attended Willamette University in Salem, Ore., for two years, then attended the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, Calif., for three years, earning a degree in photojournalism.
She returned to Snohomish County and worked at a variety of jobs before working closely with former Everett Mayor Pete Kinch at his photo studio. She later opened her own studio and developed a Web site, www.kellyophoto.com.
She played tennis and ran track in high school, and remained active in sports into adulthood. Each year she competed in the Peak to Valley annual ski event at Whistler Mountain, B.C., and achieved her personal best time two weeks ago, her brother said. And every May, she competed in the Ridge to River competition at Mission Ridge in Wenatchee, performing in all of the events herself where others competed in teams, Jim O’Neil said.
She coached her son Louis’ basketball team and spent hours sailing, skiing and golfing.
Jan Place of Tacoma met Henson in the 1980s in the annual Son of Pitch sailboat race in Everett. Henson crewed on Place’s “Bottoms Up.”
“Kelly was my foredeck gal and had the strength and the courage to jibe a 13-foot spinnaker pole in heavy wind. At one race, our main halyard broke, and Kelly did mission impossible by finding a crane that we could use to retrieve the halyard. She was remarkable in strength, and always encouraged all of us that we could push ourselves to the limit, and be surprised by the results. This was such a good lesson for all of us in our younger years, because it taught us so much about life.”
Nearly everyone in the sailing community knew Henson, either personally or by reputation, said Edwina Downes of Everett, who knew Henson for more than 40 years. News of the accident spurred extensive postings on the Sailing Anarchy Web site, with postings from far and wide.
“She was an astonishingly positive person, had an incredible disposition,” said Seattle friend Grant Fjermedal. “As a photographer, she met a lot of people all up and down the West Coast of the U.S. and Canada. She would go to San Francisco every year for the Big Boat Series, and she covered the America’s Cup. If there were sailboats on the water, there was a good chance she’d be there. Once she went to a race and met the sailors, everyone would remember her for years to come. She was famous for throwing Hershey’s Kisses at sailboats as she was photographing them.”
She often sailed with her golden retriever, Whidbey, who became severely ill after Henson was injured. The night of the accident, Whidbey quit eating and refused to get up anymore, said Gerry Henson, Kelly’s husband. He had to have the dog put to sleep.
When Willy O’Neil died, Kelly, Gerry and Louis, 9, took in Willy’s beloved golden retriever, Widgeon.
“That is the saving grace,” Gerry Henson said. “Louie and he have really bonded, and that was really a comfort to know that Widgeon was still around. He laid down next to him and put his arm around him and said, ‘It’s just us now.’”
“The other morning I’m laying in bed and thinking about things, and this was before we made the decision (to disconnect her from life support) and I’m crying buckets of tears,” Gerry Henson said. “It was just horrible. But I pulled myself out of that and said, ‘Hey, I am the luckiest guy in the world. I got to spend 20 years with her.’ I truly have never met another person like her.”
The Corinthian Yacht Club’s annual race around Blakely Rock on the east side of Bainbridge Island, where Henson took many photographs, is on Saturday. Participants are being asked to drop flowers in the water in her memory as they go around the rock, Fjermedal said.
“There’s probably going to be a shortage of daffodils in Seattle, because the daffodil was her favorite flower.”
Reporter Cathy Logg: 425-339-3437 or logg@heraldnet.com.
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