Jocelyn McGhee Kelso was the only child of the late Ruffin McGhee and the late Constance Rowe McGhee. Born and raised in Washington, DC, she attended elementary, junior high, and high school there. Education was her field of choice. Her first full-time teaching job was as a Reading Instructor at Coppin State College in Baltimore, MD. The rest of her tenure as a teacher was spent in the Dallas Independent School District. During her time in the Dyslexia Services Dept, she became a Certified Academic Language Therapist (CALT). She enjoyed 31 years of instructing and encouraging students.

She joined many sororities and professional organizations, holding positions as an officer in a few groups, but mostly serving as a committee member or chairperson.(National Sorority of Phi Delta Kappa, Inc., Iota Phi Lambda Sorority, Inc, Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., National Council of Negro Women, Top Ladies of Distinction, Inc., Academic Language Therapy Association. She was an Associate Life Member of Wiley
University National Alumni Association.

In the summers between school years, she would return to her hometown to visit family, godparents, longtime family friends, peer friends, and neighbors. These relationships lasted many years and were extremely important to her. Lifelong "Forever Friends" Fern and Angela Underdue, Brenda and Gregory Sewell are still friends today, following in the footsteps of their own mothers who were friends since high school. Godparents, Ernest and Martha Harvey, godbrothers Ernie, Jr. and Earl " Davy" Harvey visited frequently through the years. Ernie Jr.'s son (god nephew and his mother Audrey) have remained close.

God blessed her to have the Lee Family, her Texas Family, who adopted her as one of their own. Opal and Robert Lee invited her to family reunions and other family events and came to her aid whenever needed. Their son, Edward Lee, Sr., has been a faithful friend for 30 years. As godmother to Edward's children, Crissandra, Bianca, Edward Jr., and Aaliyah, she enjoyed seeing them blossom from childhood to adulthood.

Their cousin, Ahmad, godnephew, has faithfully helped her and checked on her. Edward's siblings, Myrtle, Rev. Robert Lee, Deborah, and Jesse have been helpful and supportive through the years. And they have been fervently supportive to her during her illness.

She enjoyed knowing her first cousins (Sherryl, Wilma "Bravie", Michelle, Tonya, Tawanda, and James) not only as children, but in later years as adults when the age difference was less significant. She and they marveled at how strong family traits were present in each of them. And how, as adults, they liked some of the same things. First cousins, Floretta and Edward Earl (now deceased), remained in her heart.