Family remembers Idaho musician who died of COVID-19 in nursing home: ‘She was a gem’
Kelly Hove was “a gem,” according to her sister-in-law Jan Hove. She had numerous friends and family across Idaho, which was her home nearly all her life. She was a skilled musician who instructed hundreds of Idahoans in piano and earned fans around the world with her classical music albums.
Kelly Hove was 79 years old when she died April 12. It was nearly two weeks after she started showing signs of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and only a week after a test confirmed she had the illness.
Hove is one of at least a dozen people associated with Idaho care facilities to die of COVID-19 in recent weeks.
Prior to her death, Hove was in the memory care unit of the Canyons Retirement Community, a care facility owned by TanaBell Health Services in Twin Falls. COVID-19 has affected residents and staff at Canyons.
More than one resident and more than one staff member have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to TanaBell CEO Troy Bell. By Monday evening, 1,638 people in Idaho had tested positive for COVID-19, and 48 people had died of the disease.
“This situation is heartbreaking for all involved,” Bell said in an emailed statement. “All of our residents are incredibly vulnerable, and a virus like COVID-19 is unforgiving.”
Bell declined to say how many residents have died from COVID-19. Two residents tested positive for the virus and were in hospice at the time they died, he said.
Presumably, one of those was Hove.
Like many other families who’ve lost loved ones to coronavirus, Hove’s family couldn’t be with her when she died. Her husband, Kent Hove, said funeral and memorial plans are on hold as officials continue to advise against large gatherings. Even the family’s grieving is done in isolation.
“Now (Kent is) home alone in Twin Falls, and we can’t even go see him,” said Jan Hove, who is married to Kent’s brother Eric. “Unfortunately I think so many people are going through this.”
Though the circumstances have become familiar in recent weeks, Kelly’s family wants to ensure she is remembered.
“It ended so abruptly,” Jan said. “I just want her death to matter — and her life.”
Love of piano led to record label for Idaho woman
Kelly Hove was born Kelly Frizzelle on Aug. 10, 1940, in Idaho’s Magic Valley. She lived there most of her life, before moving to Moscow to attend the University of Idaho. There, she joined the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority and majored in music and philosophy. She got married while at school, returned to Twin Falls in 1962 and began teaching piano lessons before giving birth to her son, Brook Bond.
“She was most easily defined by music and by her love of teaching music and performing music,” said Bond, who noted that she was also known as Kelly Bond, Kelly Brailsford and Kelly Yost during the years she taught piano lessons.
Kelly Hove loved all things related to the arts, even owning an art gallery in Twin Falls in the 1960s with her former husband Nicholas Bond.
“She had a sense of style, which you picked up on immediately,” brother-in-law Michael Hove wrote in an email.
As a musician, Kelly Hove found her niche in an unusual place.
“She was approached by a funeral home in Twin Falls, and they said, ‘We like to have music playing (during the day), and we’d like if you could make us a tape of your piano playing,’” Bond said in a phone interview.
Kelly went to Sun Valley to painstakingly record an album, “Piano Reflections,” featuring music from composers like Beethoven, Bach and Chopin. She released the album under the name Kelly Yost in 1987 and sold it locally before deciding to create her own record label, Channel Productions, to distribute her music.
The name was symbolic, Kent Hove said. She wanted to channel composers’ music “directly from them to whoever would care to listen,” Kent said in a phone interview.
“One thing she said about her music is she was going to leave it pure,” he said. “There’s no arrangement. It’s just as the composers left it. She wanted to send their message as pure as possible.”
Kelly went on to release three more albums in the 1990s and earned a following in Japan, where she was featured in a documentary called “Gaia Symphony.” All told, Kelly Hove sold more than half a million albums.
For Kelly Hove, Idaho outdoors and Redfish Lake were inspirations
Though Kelly Hove spent some time living in Minnesota, where Kent Hove had a dentistry practice, and in California, where she spent a year in a master’s program at the University of Southern California, most of her life she was in the Gem State.
“She’s just Idaho through and through,” Jan Hove said. “One of her favorite places to go was Redfish Lake.”
Kelly spent time at Redfish Lake as a child while her father worked on renovations at the Redfish Lake Lodge. The iconic Idaho lake always held a special place in her heart, her son said. It’s there that she married Kent Hove in 2008.
The pair had met in the 1960s at University of Idaho, where Kent Hove worked as a “hasher” preparing food at the sorority house where Kelly lived.
“I met her there and we dated but once, and then I went to dental school and kept up with her via some friends,” Kent Hove said.
Years later, he returned to the Magic Valley for a high school reunion and got in touch with Kelly.
“I was just going to stop by and say hello,” Kent said. “A year later we were married.”
“Kelly was probably the love of his life,” Jan Hove said. “They were so close and cherished each other so much.”
Kelly Hove contracted coronavirus at memory care facility
Kelly Hove started showing signs of dementia and memory loss about four years ago, her family said. In the last several months, she had gone to live at the Canyons Retirement Community in the facility’s memory care unit.
“She wasn’t playing her piano; she couldn’t remember any of us,” Jan Hove said. “It was really, really difficult.”
Canyons closed its doors to visitors March 13, the same day the first case of COVID-19 was announced in Idaho, in an effort to prevent the spread of the virus.
Troy Bell said the company is “cooperating fully” with public health agencies and doing “everything possible” to protect residents and staff. When the first COVID-19 case was confirmed in the retirement community, Canyons “turned it over” to the local public health agency, which has been sending St. Luke’s physicians to the facility, he said.
Still, by April 1, Kelly started showing signs of COVID-19. Symptoms for the disease include fever, fatigue, dry cough, runny nose and sore throat. Some people also experience gastrointestinal symptoms and loss of taste or smell.
“The test actually came back negative, but we didn’t believe it,” her son, Brook Bond, said. “On April 5, the lab called and said, ‘She does have (COVID-19).’ ”
Kent Hove said Kelly already had underlying health issues, including dementia, and wasn’t able to recover from COVID-19.
“Her death was at some point anticipated … but not as soon as it happened,” he said. “She was much more vulnerable to the virus. When she was diagnosed, it didn’t take long to take her.”
Kent was able to see Kelly briefly the day before she died, donning protective gear to sit by her bedside.
“I probably wasn’t supposed to, but between myself and the nurses there, we got me gowned up with the gown and mask and eyepiece and everything else, and I got to go in,” Kent Hove said. “She was in a coma then, but I was able to say goodbye.”
Brook said he was hopeful his mother would recover as her fever came under control. When her condition continued to decline, the 57-year-old grappled with himself over whether he should try to visit her.
“I agonized about it for a long time. (I thought), ‘I want to see her even though she probably won’t know that I’m there,’ ” Brook said. “But I just didn’t want to take that risk.”
It was an impossible choice, but Kent Hove said he believes Kelly would understand.
“Kelly would want everyone to do what they can to help others not get this virus,” Kent said. “Stay home, follow the guidelines and hope we’ll all come through this — maybe even as better people than we were before.”
