Toledoan launches innovative education curriculum
WHITEHOUSE – In her 74th year, more than two decades after she left Toledo, Deb Miles Kelly is firmly bucking author Tom Wolfe’s adage You Can’t Go Home Again.
But, then, Kelly always has forged an independent, unconventional path.
In 2003, after ending a 30-year marriage that produced four children, she sold all of her possessions and departed the Toledo area. On foot.
In the heat of late summer, she walked to St. Louis, a distance of 469 miles. Along the way, Kelly’s quest and magnetic personality made her many friends. People opened their doors – and hearts – to the middle-aged wanderer.
Now, 22 years later, the most important lesson learned from the experience still resonates.
“Americans are the most kind and generous people,” she says. “I was never alone.”
We’re chatting in Kelly’s immaculate and beautifully designed 660-square-foot home. It sits on one acre across from Oak Openings Metropark. The home and adjacent five acres belong to her daughter and son-in-law, Jill and Jade Lipinski, who operate a landscaping and excavating business on the property.
Kelly, born and schooled in Toledo, lives only three miles from the considerably larger Monclova Township home where she raised her family. It’s been a full-circle journey spanning 21 years.
When Kelly left on her trek, which she dubbed Miles Across America, she intended to reach the Sierra Nevada town of Truckee, Calif., where her two sons lived. But the weather turned cold by the time she reached St. Louis, so Kelly traveled by air the rest of the way.
In Truckee, 12 miles northwest of Lake Tahoe, her life flourished in unforeseen ways.
Her sons, Bill and Kevin, started a house painting business. Their mother signed on as the marketing director. Her daughter, Erin, moved from Ohio to join the business as the color consultant.
Then, at Kelly’s invitation, her ex-husband and still best friend, Bill Kelly, in failing health from the chronic alcoholism that ended their marriage, arrived in 2005. He quit drinking the day he stepped off the plane. An astute businessman from his days running Kelly’s IGA Foodliner in South Toledo, Bill played a pivotal role in organizing the family business. He died five years later, in 2010, but his legacy was secure.
“He told me those were the best years of his life,” Kelly says, still amazed by Bill’s unexpected resurgence and his positive impact on her tight-knit family.
Aside from work, she grew close to her six grandchildren. Kelly attended all their sports and school events. They called her Shanti, which means “peace” in Sanskrit.
Meanwhile, an idea that had been percolating for years began to take shape. As a student of life, as she describes herself, Kelly witnessed the adverse impact of a chaotic, fast-paced world on school children. She tapped information from educators, technologists and marketers and came up with a platform she called Life Ingredients. The initial idea, she said, was to provide teachers – and parents – with a toolkit to instruct students to calm their minds. The hopeful result would be improved critical thinking and learning how to manage their lives.
Life Ingredients kept her busy, so Kelly retired from the family business at 65. She began traveling with her three best friends from Rogers High School and created a podcast called Rams Radio RH, in which she interviewed Rogers’ alums.
By 2023, Kelly, very much possessing an intuitive mindset, felt the tug of the road once again.
“I needed a change,” she says, looking back. “It was the same inspiration I had for Miles Across America.”
Other factors nudged her motivation to move on. Her grandchildren were older, diminishing their Shanti’s role in their lives. And her cozy apartment of 15 years, above her son Kevin’s house, was about to disappear as he was building a new home on the site.
So, on April 1, 2024, Kelly packed her framed art, a cherished soup pot, favorite books and little else into her 12-year-old Honda and headed east. Over the next five months she attended a retreat in Colorado and couch surfed with family and friends in Florida, Vancouver, British Columbia and Tennessee. Along the way, there was an unexplainable pull toward Lucas County.
“I had this feeling I needed to go home,” she says.
She arrived in September and moved into a Maumee apartment. Word spread among her many friends that Deb Kelly, the can-do girl, was back. That led to her recruitment as one of the organizers of a high school reunion. The combination of the lengthy road trip, reunion activities and subsequent holidays proved too much for the normally healthy Kelly.
“I got really sick in January,” she says.
Her undiagnosed illness lingered for weeks until her daughter Jill finally coaxed her into an urgent care visit. There, tests revealed a urinary tract infection. Antibiotics handled the illness but not her stubborn aversion to doctors.
“I believe the body can heal itself,” Kelly explains, reaffirming the unconventional thinking that has defined her life.
She moved into the Whitehouse home in February. That story involved another intuitive episode. Kelly had been looking at tiny house designs on the Internet and thinking such a place would be a perfect fit. A few months after she returned, Jill called and said, “Mom, we bought the property next to us. You can live in the house.”
Aside from a home and area she loves, Kelly has enjoyed growing closer to Jill, her husband and two grandchildren, Paxton, 19, and 14-year-old Piper. She admits to a contentious relationship with her eldest daughter in years past, but that situation has softened considerably.
“I overheard Jill tell her siblings one day, ‘I get Mom now for the rest of my life,'” Kelly says, clearly moved by those words. “I’m so proud of that girl.”
She explains that in addition to working with her husband, Jill will be opening a coffee shop called Wild Roots at Oak Openings this summer. The other Kelly children are crushing it, as well. The house painting shop started by her sons has turned into Kelly Brothers Painting, a multi-million-dollar business with more than 75 contract employees operating in three towns. Meanwhile, all four siblings are involved in a number of real estate ventures in multiple states. Kelly sits in on their monthly meetings, offering the occasional advice.
Over the course of an hour, we quickly bounced from one topic to the next. Her newest friend, a 4-year-old rescue dog named Ivy, became a welcome roommate four days earlier. She’s anxious for warmer weather so she can plant her herb garden. She just completed a 105-page photo book for her granddaughter Kailea’s 21st birthday. She’s promised each of the eight the same: That’s two down and six to go – three of them in 2026.
Whew! I’m exhausted.
Kelly possesses a level of infectious enthusiasm on her many areas of interest that can wear you out if you are unprepared. I asked her if she’s ever able to quiet her active mind. She responds with a single word: meditation.
“I’ve been practicing it most of my life,” she says.
That brought us back to Life Ingredients and her plan to grow the business. Kelly tested an early version of the program in a few Truckee-area schools with excellent results. Since then, she’s collaborated with an illustrator, Kelly Dillon, and produced eight children’s books, more than 150 instruction videos and eight short stories – all fee-based on the Life Ingredients website.
The target audience remains parents and teachers, who also benefit from the meditative aspect of the program. As a tribute to her grandchildren, her pseudonym for materials produced solely for children is Shanti.
Next up is a YouTube channel.
“I intend to do talks, sharing my material,” Kelly says. “That includes everything from stories, to cooking, art projects, planting a garden and meditating in nature.”
Final question: That’s a lot of work. Why?
Of course, Kelly had an answer.
“I have been thinking about what kind of legacy I can leave my grandchildren. I could leave them a few bucks in the bank and some china for their cabinet. But I don’t think it will really rock their world or the world at large. This might.”
