Millicent Teague Kelly

August 28, 1925 - September 10, 2026

A life devoted to children, nutrition, healing, and hope

Millicent Teague Kelly was born at Banner Elk Hospital in Banner Elk, North Carolina, near Grandfather Mountain, the Appalachian Trail, and the Blue Ridge Parkway. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the Johns Hopkins School of Nutrition and Dietetics in Baltimore, Maryland.

Early Life and Education

The seventh of nine children, Millicent Teague Kelly came from a family that revered education. The daughter of one of Avery County’s first superintendents of schools, Milly and her siblings each received post-secondary degrees during the early twentieth century - a remarkable accomplishment. A 1942 graduate of Newland High School, Milly was persuaded by her brother to pursue a secretarial degree at Mars Hill College. After one semester, she “couldn’t bear it” and, unbeknownst to her parents, promptly changed her major to nutrition.

Milly continued her studies at the Women’s College of Greensboro, now UNC Greensboro. In 1947 - the same year she was named Miss Avery County - she was selected to travel to Maryland to complete a twelve-month program at the Johns Hopkins School of Nutrition and Dietetics. This adventure took an “old mountain girl,” as Milly described herself, by train to the renowned hospital in Baltimore. That journey proved to be one of the most auspicious of her life.

A Career at Johns Hopkins

Following her program, Milly worked first as a nurse and later transferred to the Nutrition Department. There, Dr. Samuel Livingston introduced her to the ketogenic diet, a nutrition regimen that transformed the lives of many children with epilepsy.

Milly helped patients achieve ketosis through a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet. She and the Hopkins staff saw remarkable results and continued the therapy even as many hospitals turned primarily to prescription medicines.

A Life Changing Legacy

Milly retired in 1990 but continued at the hospital as a private consultant in pediatric neurology. While visiting a newly admitted patient, she encountered a father watching his twenty-month-old son endure seizure after seizure - at times more than one hundred a day.

“That father was desperate,” Milly recalled. “He was willing to do whatever it would take to save his son.” Milly suggested the ketogenic diet, which the family had never heard about. Charlie Abrahams responded quickly and was soon free of seizures. His father, filmmaker Jim Abrahams, went on to support programs that increased awareness of the diet and its effects.

First Do No Harm

Jim Abrahams funded educational programs, seminars, and a book Milly wrote with Dr. John Freeman. He also shared his family’s experience on Dateline, with Milly by his side, and produced the film First Do No Harm, starring Meryl Streep. Milly appeared as herself.

Milly continued to receive calls and cards from people whose lives she helped restore, and she was honored many times throughout her career.

Family

Millicent was married to the late Spencer Thomas Kelly. She is survived by two children, Jenny Lind Kelly and Edwin Kelly, as well as six grandchildren. She passed away on Thursday, September 10, from complications of cerebrovascular disease at her daughter’s home in Hunt Valley, Maryland, after seventeen days of in-home hospice care supervised by Gilchrist Hospice Care.

Films Interviews and Tributes

First Do No Harm

Millicent T. Kelly, R.D., appears as herself alongside Meryl Streep in this film based on the true story of Charlie Abrahams. The story follows a family’s discovery of the ketogenic diet as a treatment for childhood epilepsy.

Watch on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwJ67vGKz0k

Dateline NBC Medical Secrets - October 26, 1994

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7d5gQrpdfo&t=94s

Millicent Kelly and the Modern History of the Ketogenic Diet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma5t4ClKZSU

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Online condolences may be made to the family at www.peacefulalternatives.com