Carmela Marie (Kelly) Dempsey was born on August 27, 1963 at Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane, Washington.  She grew up in a large Italian-Irish family in the Pasadena Park area of the Spokane Valley.  She was the last of seven children born to Curran Declan Dempsey of Spokane and Carmela Gloria (Scarcello) Dempsey of Twin Lakes, Idaho.

When Carmie was 13 years old, a routine physical screening revealed that she had moderately severe scoliosis or curvature of the spine.  Over the next three years, treatment of her condition included a body brace, body cast and major surgery to place a Harrington rod in her back.  She met all these challenges bravely.

In 1981, Carmela graduated from West Valley High School, where she was a member of the National Honor Society.  She discovered a gift and passion for journalism and creative writing, acting as a features editor for the school newspaper and composing an award-winning poem about her great aunt Angelina, who emigrated from Italy.  Carmela founded the Scoliosis Chapter of the Inland Northwest, was a Lilac Princess candidate, and a finalist in the Miss Washington National Teenager Pageant.  She also toured the state in an acting troupe.

Carmela attended Western Washington for a year, then transferred to the University of Washington where she graduated with a degree in International Public Relations.  In 1986, she was selected as a Seafair Princess and was also honored as Miss Italian Community at the Kingdome in Seattle.  Her first job after graduating was working in a travel agency.  She held various public relations, modeling and writing jobs in Seattle.  She worked as a volunteer for the National Scoliosis Association, and also served as an aerobics instructor for the YMCA.

Carmela moved to Phoenix to work as a national recruiter of technical professionals.  She excelled at this difficult work for 10 years, and also took graduate level classes in creative writing at Arizona State University.   In 1995, Carmela, her mother and her sister Candace made an extended trip to Turkey and Italy.  This included a long anticipated visit to relatives in the town of Pedace in Calabria, Italy, where her maternal grandparents had emigrated from to a farm near Twin Lakes, Idaho.  An Italian cousin recently stated that this visit to Italy by her American relatives changed her world and made it bigger and full of new attachments.

In 1999, Carmela married Terrence Kelly of Springfield, and they lived in Chicago, Seattle and Phoenix.  In Phoenix, her love of writing propelled her into the journalism program at Paradise Valley Community College. She received a scholarship from Investigative Reporters and Editors , and in 2011 she won a Mark of Excellence for In-Depth Reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists. Carmela's writing credits include the Puma Express and the Huffington Post .

Carmela developed a passion for courtroom reporting while working with attorneys, private investigators and the paparazzi media.  Her investigative credits include work found in a 2012 e-book, and investigating and contributing to a news story of lost artwork of Kurt Cobain for The Fix .  She wrote stories that developed in Los Angeles, New York, Seattle and Phoenix courtrooms, and could proudly say "I am an investigative reporter."

In 2014, Carmela and Terry divorced.  After her mother's death in 2015, she moved to Spokane to be closer to her siblings.

Like her mother, Carm had a sparkling and generous personality, and loved cooking Italian and ethnic foods of all types.  She enjoyed having fun with her friends, cousins, nieces and nephews, loved bringing people together, and always had a pet dog or cat that she cherished.  She traveled to Ireland with her husband, and found the spot where her great, great grandfather emigrated from to America.   In 2014, she took her mother on a special cruise to Alaska.

Carmela taught her niece Maria how to shuffle cards and play gin rummy at the Dempsey lake house.  Her niece Katherine recalls that Aunt Carmie, "by far", told the best stories from a little kid's perspective, saying "She entertained any of our questions, and always had time to sit with us and talk," and that "She was charismatic, funny, an incredible story teller, a fabulous cook, and a savvy businesswoman."

Carmela made herself an expert in genealogy, tracing her lineage and that of her siblings to the American Revolution and down to an uncle of Abraham Lincoln, six times removed.  She discovered that in 1889 her great grandmother Mary Ellen Lincoln traveled with her mother from Missouri to Halfway, Oregon, and that later her great grandfather and family patriarch CC Dempsey, originally from Dodge County, Wisconsin, traveled from Spokane to Oregon to marry Mary Ellen.

While her life was cut short by cancer on September 13, 2020, she will be remembered with tenderness and love by her family, relatives and friends.

Carmela was preceded in death by her sister Carole, who died at age 43, and her parents.  She is survived by her siblings Daniel (Susan Lange), Sherry (Zenen) Antoniak, Candace (Mark Rosenblum), Michael (Nancy DeFelice Dempsey), and Curran (Rebecca Vogt Dempsey), and nieces Maria and Katherine Antoniak, McKenzie and Logan Dempsey, and nephews Damian and Stephen Antoniak, Mark Peppard Dempsey, Jacob Rosenblum, Ben Gustin, and Andrew, Mathew and Michael Dempsey.  The family deeply appreciates the exceptional care given to Carmela by the nurses, doctors, and staff at Sacred Heart ICU and respiratory units, the Gardens on University skilled nursing facility, and Kindred Hospice.

A Liturgy of the Word Service will be celebrated at 1:00 pm, Saturday, September 26, 2020 in the chapel at Holy Cross Cemetery, 7200 N. Wall Street, with Father Patrick Kerst presiding.  Due to the coronavirus seating will be limited.  A graveside service will follow at the cemetery. To watch live stream of the funeral and graveside go to https://youtu.be/tl-tSt2frYE . A celebration of life reception is being planned for next summer by the family. In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to Spokane Shriner's Hospital for Children, https://www.shrinershospitalsforchildren.org/spokane/ways-to-give , or to the Investigative Reporters and Editors, https://www.ire.org/ .