Kelly Ray’s Service & Repair closed for business

By Robert Williams

Editor

At the end of March, Kelly Schwarzrock began the process of shutting down his business Kelly Ray’s Service & Repair in Evergreen and preparing for a relocation with his wife Karen to Tennessee.

“I was able to service out Wolf Lake Fire Department’s big trucks and I didn’t have time to do their small ones,” Schwarzrock said. “I always liked taking care of them…good people.”

The past few weeks have been spent cleaning out the shop, selling property, and taking care of last minute advice, along with conversations about relocating with those good people.

“You make a lot of friends,” Schwarzrock said. “When they find out that you’re closing the doors and leaving they call you a lot more.”

Kelly is not planning to go full-on with retirement, but he is retiring from wrenching, specifically big truck mechanic work that is hard on the body. Schwarzrock is looking forward to trading in the vibrations of his impact wrenches for something a little calmer.

“I’m still going to work but I’m getting to the age where I’m developing health issues,” he said. 

For the most part, his health issues have been arthritic in nature, throw in some carpel tunnel syndrome and other upper body ailments. However, 18 months ago, he developed hernias that became complicated.

“That took me a while to get over it,” he said. “I’m not 20 anymore. It was a lot easier when I was 25 and now I’m getting closer to 60.”

Schwarzrock has a rocky relationship with hernias as he suffered one at the age of 10 that almost killed him. He needed an emergency procedure by surgeon Virgil Watson to survive.

At the age of four, Schwarzrock was electrocuted and a few years later run over by a tractor.

“I’ve been through things in my life,” he laughed. 

Wanting to flee Minnesota winters is also a big reason why Kelly and Karen are flying south.

Schwarzrock opened Kelly Ray’s Service & Repair a decade ago working mostly with large agricultural and commercial vehicles.

Prior to that, he cut his teeth in the business at different shops and moved around during his career to Jerry’s Repair, Anderson Bus & Coach, and a stint running turrets and a robot welder at BTD. He is also a commercial inspector for Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT).

“After I went through diesel mechanics I started working at Daggett Truck Line and I’ve had a long history with Daggetts,” he said. “Those people have been very good to me. My hats off to them. In my early years while I was working at Daggett, my dad passed away.”

A fortnight before his passing, Kelly’s dad beckoned him to go for a drive.

“He told me I don’t know what these next few weeks will hold, but if something happens to me, do your best to keep your mom out of the home,” he said. “She just went into the home about nine months ago—32 years later. So, I fulfilled that promise to my dad and mom’s been good to me. It’s been good to spend so many years with her close by too.”

Having that conversation on the drive with his father proved to be very important

“Two weeks later he was gone,” Kelly said. “We just woke up one morning and he had passed away in his sleep.”

Kelly’s dad had also worked for Daggett Truck Line back in the 1950s.

“When he passed away Daggetts had sent in a huge bouquet for my dad and I still remember Marv Daggett,” Schwarzrock said. “I was sitting in the pew and he paid his respects. He turned around, came down the aisle, put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Kelly, we just don’t know when our time is. We just never know.’ That was the last thing Marv ever said to me. He passed on a few days later. Just like he said, you never know. Tomorrow is not promised.”

That is exactly why Schwarzrock closed his business and is opting to start something new in Tennessee.

“My dad worked most of his life; when he retired he had two years before he was gone,” said Schwarzrock. “It was hard for him. He was retired from his job but he was still milking cows and farming. I can still see him cleaning the barn for the last time.”

Schwarzrock, a 1987 Frazee-Vergas High School graduate, had his own run-ins with major health scares recovering from throat cancer in 2004.

“That knocked me down for a couple years,” he said.

A decade later he was snowmobiling with his son Jimmy on a warm winter day near the family property off State Highway 87 near Evergreen.

“We stopped and I said, wouldn’t this be a good spot to build a shop? He looked at me and said, ‘Yeah, it would be, dad.’” said Schwarzrock.

Late winter they started pulling logs out of the woods and started milling them down.

“We were sawing lumber for quite a while and I had Vernon Mast, an Amish neighbor, he sawed the rest of them up for me while we were pouring concrete,” Schwarzrock said. “Buck Jepson and three young Amish men helped me build this shop. I will say one thing when you’re working with the Amish you better be ready to work. They don’t mess around but we had a lot of fun.”

Building the shop was something Kelly wanted to do for himself before he passed on.

“And now I’ve done it for 10 years,” he said. “I experienced a lot of freedom. I could listen to my own music. I was in control of the air quality here which was huge for me with the throat cancer.”

The shop also helped Kelly keep his promise he made to his dad.

“This was also a way to keep my mom at home,” he said. “I was nearby.”

Karen, a Detroit Lakes native, was able to assist by working from home in her job as a Transportation Specialist for the MnDOT, especially during the COVID lockdown.

Eventually, the couple moved Kelly’s mom Donna into their home for more primary care.

“Then it got to the point where she needed supervision all the time,” he said.

Donna is going to be 90 this year.

The next worry was what to do about the family farm with the couple’s five kids all moved away.

It was too much for Kelly and Karen to care for while holding down their own full-time jobs.

Kelly sincerely believes that of all the things that have happened to him, he is here for a purpose.

“It’s not always easy to say, but about the time I had the cancer, I wasn’t the nicest or greatest person,” he said. “I think God gave me that infliction to wake me up. I’m still here. Things go a lot better when you are with Him and not fighting Him.”

Deciding to move to Tennessee was also something Kelly and Karen put in the Lord’s hands, along with 18 months of searching by Karen on the Zillow real estate app. The quest was open-minded as far as destination, but what was mandatory was solace.

“If we do this I want it to be worth it; I want a place that has trees. I don’t want to see a road. I don’t want people driving by to see my house and yard. I want seclusion,” Schwarzrock said. “I want privacy and I’d love to have mountains.”

Karen found the place just south of Knoxville in the Cherokee National Forest and the couple were just there in February and March.

“I didn’t want to come back,” Kelly laughed. “I could hear the creek running down from the mountain and I could hear the frogs and birds singing and that’s all I heard. All you see is trees and mountains and there is a huge porch with a rocking chair.”

Other people had looked at the property, but no offers had been made. The Schwarzrocks hired Jason Ziegler of Whitetail Properties Real Estate to handle the sale of the Schwarzrock parcels in Evergreen.

“It’s like this was meant to be; he had this place sold almost before it got to market,” Schwarzrock said.

Kelly’s son Jimmy stepped up to keep a portion of the land in the family by purchasing the family house.

“He said this has always been home and he wants to keep it,” Schwarzrock said. 

The Schwarzrocks will close the sale of their property on April 30 and Kelly and Jimmy will be taking off to Tennessee to close on that purchase two days later. Karen will be soon to follow with her favorite mare that is also making the trip with the family.

“I almost feel like I have a purpose down there; I don’t know what it is but I guess I’ll find out,”  Schwarzrock said.

Schwarzrock credits Daggett Truck Lines, the Wolf Lake Fire Department and Gemstone Masonry Operating Company for helping him make a success of a shop in the middle of nowhere, along with all of his other customers.

“I had a customer tell me, ‘Kelly, you don’t need a lot of customers, just some loyal ones.”

The Schwarzrocks will be auctioning off the remainder of their things that don’t move to Tennessee, along with a lot of inventory items from the shop: tools, tire machines, engine tools, presses, hoists and the like.

Auctioneer Mitch Barthel of the Perham Stockyards will conduct the auction beginning at 10 a.m., on Saturday, June 14, at 45152 State Hwy 87, just east of the Evergreen intersection.