Katrina's Lives Lost:	John Kelt Sr	1914-2005
			Annie Kelt	1919-2005
Submitted By: 		N.O.V.A January 2006
Source:			Times Picayune 01-08-2006

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John Kelt met Annie Hayes on the Mississippi River -- on a short
cruise aboard the SS President. He was a New Orleans boy, a
graduate of Capdau Jr. High School who went to work to help support
his family during the Depression. He had an aptitude for
construction and woodwork, joined the Carpenters Union, served as
an Air Force billing clerk during World War II and also worked at
Higgins Boatyard, helping build minesweepers, according to son
James Kelt.

Hayes was a country girl from Riverton, Ala., "way up in the
hills," said her daughter, Joanne Kapesis. "As a teenager, she even
picked cotton."

They married in 1949, "and both worked very hard," Kapesis said.
Projects on which Kelt worked included the foundation for the
Superdome, downtown hotels and Interstate 10. Annie Kelt worked a
wide variety of jobs, Kapesis said, including Higgins, telephone
operator, nurse's aide, splicing film at the old Motion Picture
Advertising Co. and as a seamstress at Wembley Ties.

"My father could fix almost anything," Kelt said. "He was always
working on their house on Warrington Drive, the garage and a piece
of rental property he owned nearby.

"He loved boats and fishing, took me with him, and he hunted," Kelt
said, to which his sister added, "We'd have rabbit stew sometimes."
Both remember Carnival family outings, visits to Pontchartrain
Beach, "lots of outdoor activities with our parents."

"My mother loved flowers and animals," Kapesis said. "She was the
kind of person who could break a twig off a bush, stick it in the
ground and make it grow. She always had grapevines, mirlitons and
their Creole tomatoes every year. We had cats, dogs, guinea pigs
and turtles. But she really loved birds. Fed them all the time."

The Sunday before Katrina's approach, James Kelt said he visited
his elderly father, "who wanted me to nail down some loose siding.
He was thinking about wind damage. They lived on the east side of
the London Avenue Canal and no one expected it to break. They were
sort of prepared, with life preservers and a ladder."

Kelt tried a second time to get his parents to leave and his mother
agreed, but only if her husband would, too, and he refused.

Their son returned to their home by rescue boat and discovered
their bodies. "That was hard," he said. The bodies were recovered
by the sheriff's office the next day.

"When I went back to the house," Kapesis said, "the only thing
growing were two of my mother's tomato plants, with little green
tomatoes on them."