Nancy Ethel Baker Taylor
Later this month, Aunt CB’s mother would have had
her birthday—born 130 years ago! If this post sounds remotely familiar to you,
it is because it should! Mom wrote this back in 2008, but she just read it over
a few days ago and could not find a thing to change or add. How she would enjoy
just sharing a cup of tea with her mother as the long days of July are upon us.
Ethel B. Taylor, Jun, 1961--427 W. Main, Waterloo, spirea bushes
While the words are the same, Pat Kinsella Herdeg
has found new (to her) pictures of Nancy Ethel Baker Taylor. You will find the
2008 posting here, with different pictures than what you see below:
And, from 2012 when Grandma would
have been 125 years old, more stories about Ethel:
And here, from 2013, a few of Grandma Taylor’s
recipes:
Ethel Baker in garden at back of 427 W. Main, Waterloo
It was a warm sunny day in the mid 1930's. Adin’s car
pulled up to the side of the road, parked in the weeds along the bank of a
slight hill and we walked up it towards the plain white one room schoolhouse,
carrying our deviled eggs and potato salad. As Harold and I struggled up the
grassy bank I heard a shout, then, “Miss Baker? Yes, I can’t believe it’s
you.”–and watched as a big burly man enveloped our mother in his arms, salad
and all!
Ethel and her mother, Kate Baker
Several more people came hurrying over to take her
dishes and shake her hand, hug her–with cries of “haven’t seen you since I said
my ABC’s to you.” We were attending the Caldwell school house students' picnic
near where my mother had grown up on the farm in Center Lisle but this was
crazy! They treated her like a best beloved teacher. Yes, she’d taught here for
two years after she received her state certificate from Cortland Normal to
enable her to do rural teaching—but this—she was just our mother!
Ethel B. Taylor at Gettysburg, Aug 1952
Travel through the years of more Cortland Normal,
teaching in Oakfield, NY and New Jersey, marriage, raising six children and
fast forward now to the early 1940's. It was a playnight at our church. There
on stage sat Momma, dressed in an old house dress with a crazy looking straw
hat on her head, surrounded by several more members of her Sunday School Class
dressed just a foolishly!
She had a scrub board held between her knees, and at
a nod from the similarly attired leader she began wisking her stiff brush up
and down the rippled exterior, creating a swishing sound, accompanied by
someone with an egg beater in a tin pail, a zither sound from another friend
blowing a comb covered with tissue, as though it was a mouth organ, another
pounding the bottom of a washtub —the kitchen band played accompaniment as we all sang “You are My Sunshine” —that’s our
mother? Yes—that’s our mother.
Ethel and her brother, Adin, 1963
The amazement I felt as a kid at the respectful way
her former students treated her, the surprise I had as I realized the warm,
funny everyday side of her in the kitchen band, watching the daisy in her hat
bob, as she “scrubbed” away to the music. All a part of my growing up and
understanding that “Just our mother” was a warm talented, loving person, who
lived her life listening and doing for others and yes, she was our mother, but
not “just”— she was more than our mother, she was a person who stood out among
the crowd. I carry her with me, in my heart, every day I live.
Ethel
