Floyd Taylor and Marianne Taylor

00:01 Hi, my name is Mary Ann Taylor. Today is January.

00:08 30th 2011 we are here in Dayton, Ohio with my father Floyd Taylor and we are going to record his story or some of it story.

00:25 Jersey Mike

00:27 Introduce yourself on Floyd Taylor the

00:34 Father who's being interviewed

00:45 Memories of your parents Margaret and I never knew your mother. What do you remember of your mother?

00:52 My mother died when I was two and I really don't remember anything about her.

01:01 Well, I live with my

01:05 Grandmother and my father my mother

01:09 Died when I was two and my father had come to live with her when he was married.

01:16 And after it, my mother died, my father had our girls come in and help my grandmother with the housework cooking.

01:30 I'm in 1935.

01:33 7 years after my mother had died my father married again.

01:41 How did he meet his second wife?

01:47 He met her through someone who would have been buying and trading cattle with him was his wife's sister.

02:04 That's how we met her.

02:07 Was your grandmother still alive?

02:09 The point was Grandma's my grandmother's house and her.

02:15 Farm

02:17 That had been let was left over from the larger Farm the live belong to her husband and

02:26 And there's

02:30 There was a barn.

02:34 Barnyard to pig pens a wagon that time earlier

02:44 Storing wagons and tools in the chicken house

02:48 Cod4 a hard man in an outhouse

02:56 And there was a large yard surrounding the farmhouse.

03:01 I'm behind the barn there were.

03:04 Orchard on Orchard with apple trees cherry trees

03:08 And further down the hill and the barn there was a vineyard with red blue and white concord grapes.

03:20 The hill behind the barn was fairly Steep and we have great fun in the wintertime sledding on found out Hill.

03:32 And that was all your family's land right that belonged to my grandmother.

03:39 All the lands have been earlier parceled out to my and aunts and uncles as part of my grandfather's will and where was that look?

03:53 This was all in North Versailles Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.

03:59 Near Pittsburgh near Pittsburgh about 20 miles in Pittsburgh

04:05 East of Pittsburgh

04:11 So you grew up during the Great Depression. What what did you what do you remember of that would you do to get through that?

04:20 Struggle

04:24 I recall.

04:26 Number things in the depression

04:29 Are where we were living in a not far from

04:35 Not far from North Versailles was McKeesport, which was the center of one of the u.s. Deals National tube works and then there were other Industries in the Turtle Creek Valley.

04:51 And there were the all of these areas along the Monongahela River in the office getting River were subject to floods.

04:59 And there were a number of them.

05:02 During the Depression years one in 1936, which was a very severe flood.

05:09 There were robots moving around in Pittsburgh never rowboats in the Turtle Creek Valley. That was it enough time.

05:21 Then we went we didn't have power for at least a week after after the flood.

05:29 I remember when there were.

05:32 There were candles in.

05:36 Good health natural gas with a stove cooking.

05:41 And we had a coal furnace, so we didn't have to depend on power for the heating.

05:48 What are things at the house not always very efficiently, but

05:54 You will always hate I remember going to school.

06:00 There were many days in which we all had to take our

06:05 Monsters most wrapped in newspaper

06:09 And whether we're sandwiches and if we were lucky there was a piece of fruit and there were many children who didn't have

06:19 Lunches

06:20 So there was a time at the beginning of lights. When do she went around and got contributions for the kids who didn't have lunches?

06:32 The school was very terms of today's standards is very primitive.

06:40 There were

06:42 Five rooms on the first floor in one large room one in the downstairs and there were eight grades in that school. It was a large playground behind the school.

06:55 And the activities on the playground wear softball.

07:06 Sometimes touch football

07:09 Recess time

07:12 Where are the other instances? It was just

07:17 You make the made up games on your run.

07:21 I didn't couldn't participate in most of the game. It's because of my eyes and so I mostly just walked around until recess was over.

07:35 As far as things at home were concerned week. We didn't have we had always had cows and pigs and chickens because my father traded in all those animals so we had

07:52 We could have chicken and dinner chicken with dinner.

07:58 Are we always at there was always milk to be had and cream and we could make our own daughter.

08:07 And it was always bread.

08:11 My stepmother make bread. My grandmother didn't off and cook. This was mostly left in the hard girls and my stepmother when she came.

08:23 As far as clothes were concerned. I had many there were many times when I

08:29 It was growing up in which I grew out of clothes, but I got clothes handed down from some of my uncles.

08:39 Where did where?

08:43 And I Christmastime my maternal grandparents would give us my brother and I

08:49 Clothes for Christmas and that's sort of Christmas gifts. We got there was seldom much under the tree. Speak of

08:59 I remember.

09:03 1 Christmas light of probably no late 30s

09:07 My brother and I got wrist watches for Christmas and that was

09:12 One of the biggest

09:14 Yes, we have gotten during the Depression time. We were with her or many toys.

09:22 Amazon books

09:26 Later later in the late thirties, I would.

09:29 Cut grass during the summer and earn enough to buy some books myself.

09:36 I worked all summer one summer. We aren't $12.

09:40 And I went to that one of the department stores in Pittsburgh that had a book section and spent all $12 in one afternoon.

09:53 Uncle Henry with Uncle Reece and his wife had a greenhouse and I would help him on Decoration Day at the fix the graves at the cemetery. He would fix them with succulent.

10:14 Plants and red and green plants for contrast and we would go out after it work during the day as a machinist and then we would do this at night and we worked with using a pit lamp car bug lamp and I would go and get water for him plant the plants and so I was the Gopher.

10:39 Anyway, he would get it would get commissions from various people to fix these Graves.

10:47 Some were very elaborate. They would fix the whole grade not just for us in front of the gravestone, but the whole thing and they were very much work Savard when they were very lovely.

11:04 I'm doing this.

11:07 During the Depression there were lots of people were out of work.

11:12 I never bread lines.

11:15 I've been doing the summer it released in good weather. We live right along 30 Lincoln on Lincoln Highway and there would be no goes up and down the highway and they would stop at the people's I just asked for food and water.

11:35 You're usually a lot of Peddlers thing came along to sell thread and needles and whatever other things I had this had to bring money income for them.

11:52 Now, I know you were an exemplary child, but what?

11:57 We all got in trouble one day we cuz we were some of my cousins and I went with my brother.

12:05 We were we were we went out in the cornfield which was behind the barn and we've got corn silk and smoked corn syrup and came back and wait since their eyebrows. So they all knew we've been smoking corn silk and when we were in for it then

12:21 Wasn't there a story about a goose or something when there was there was one very unpleasant turkey that we had turkey gobbler. That was very nasty. As soon as he saw anybody with Chase Zoey 130 chase me up at 3.

12:38 And then my brother would never let me forget that.

12:44 The best thing

12:45 About your childhood

12:50 Going to my maternal grandparents during the summer for a week.

12:57 Where do they live their lives just outside of West Newton in Rostraver Township Westmoreland County. My grandfather raised chickens and Retail bags in one acid.

13:10 So when we would go there during the summer, we would go along with him on Wednesdays retail his legs and it was it was great fun because there were mine ice and water Mills us steals Watermill was there and when the meal was working there were all these different ethnic groups that would buy the first year in Spanish and wonderful pastries.

13:45 But that was always great fun just experiencing the different people and my aunt and uncle lived on a farm right next to my grandfather grandmother their form once belonged to my grandparents and he sold it to them. They had a large dairy farm and there is Niantic they had three children two girls and a boy and we had fun together.

14:14 And if there was work to do picking raspberries or working in the garden, I did that help my grandparents and

14:22 When we were with my cousins over work to be done we help with that my brother didn't care much for having this kind of vacation, but he didn't like much to go because my aunt was fairly strict and he didn't like that.

14:43 It was too confining for him.

14:51 Switching gears here a little bit to own

14:55 I know you meant our mother Margaret and and my mother at the wedding of one of your eternity Brothers. I met my first wife Eleanor Brunch House.

15:08 At the wedding of my college roommate down there and my roommate's wife selling in.

15:17 We're nurses together.

15:21 And so they knew each other quite well.

15:26 And so my college roommate doctor Jagger to later doctor Jagger. I was an usher at their wedding and Eleanor sang at the wedding.

15:39 And I was blown over by her presentation of pontus Angelicus.

15:49 So that's how it started.

15:54 We are happily married for

15:57 Twenty-some years

16:03 She died very suddenly with the heart attack.

16:08 What's your most vivid memory of mom?

16:14 Although there are many but one humorist thing that happened. I like to take pictures.

16:21 Not long maybe several years before she died. She was taking some sort of medication for high blood pressure and

16:35 We were we had a birthday party for her and with a cake and candles and so I was taking a picture and she was blowing out the candles and I got the picture just has to purchase with filled with air and blow out the candles and it was I thought it was very funny, but she was so upset when she saw the picture.

16:58 I don't know what's happened to pick a picture what it really was it.

17:02 Something that would never happen again. I don't think I could even know when exactly take the picture but it was one of those things that happens at the right time.

17:13 That was one that I remembered.

17:18 She didn't she wasn't she wasn't angry about the picture bigger than expected.

17:27 How do you think Mom would want to be remembered?

17:34 Aspen

17:37 Most Anthem theme very interested in the family.

17:42 She was interested in community things in the church.

17:47 I miss you would feeling collection committee for.

17:53 Once the Salvation Army Red Cross. I don't know that they appointed community leaders make the elections in several blocks are in a community anymore, but they did then.

18:08 She did that.

18:13 I meant you would be Aunt would be happy to be remembered that she

18:21 Roanoke

18:23 You're very lovely daughters.

18:29 Speaking of those daughters. I'm your youngest daughter and Margaret's your oldest daughter. So do you remember seeing Margaret for the very first time?

18:39 World, yes.

18:42 I do both both of you were very beautiful children.

18:48 I enjoyed.

18:51 I remember Margaret, I guess when she was probably.

18:56 Eight or nine month old sitting in a high chair and

19:00 Eating Cheerios picking up a Cheerio individual and eating it one by one and I thought well at that race you might say be eating Cheerios for a homeowner.

19:16 She wants to know is very kind to her younger sister.

19:21 Then there were times you would be out in the backyard and gave her younger sister and she did and then we found out what was going on. The last I hope very long after that.

19:42 But they were there were sibling quarrels and

19:46 Later on, they got older and wiser. They

19:51 I think very compatible sisters.

20:00 What what?

20:02 The hardest moment that you had when you were raising us.

20:06 As a parent.

20:10 Worrying about drugs and what you did in high school?

20:16 That was difficult.

20:23 I'm not.

20:26 Close all communication with both of you.

20:34 Call time.

20:37 Sweating your mother not to

20:40 Close the door if the door Communication open.

20:45 Even though we were both very upset at some of the things that happened we knew we had to do that.

20:53 And which one are you?

20:59 So if you had to do it all over again with Margaret, and I would you do anything differently.

21:08 Wishing you a gotten wiser more quickly.

21:12 Okay.

21:15 What was named comes after some. Of time?

21:27 So you married again after mom passed away your second life.

21:35 The second wife was dr. Frances through

21:39 And we both worked at the University and Department of Community medicine.

21:44 And she was this sorry she's going to students.

21:48 And I work in the department as biostatistician and

21:55 Analyzed and designed clinical trials

21:58 Got some statistics to this.

22:01 Second-year medical students

22:07 That's how we met in a department. We knew each other all the time. We work together.

22:14 And her husband died.

22:17 Her husband died.

22:22 Sometime after the only red dye and so we started going to concerts together and that one thing and that led to another and we were married in 1983.

22:37 What's your most vivid memory of Penna? That was her nickname, right? I know how she get that nickname. She went to medical school and deal and when they ask her where she came from she said Pennsylvania and they said okay Anna and p e n n a with an abbreviation for Pennsylvania during that time.

22:58 So they called her fan and the name stuck.

23:02 Her full name was Rebecca Francis.

23:05 Answering

23:08 She know she didn't like Francis at all. Do you want to get her attention you?

23:14 Ask called for Rebecca Francis.

23:25 We enjoy music together and we

23:29 Did some traveling together.

23:33 We went to Spain. We enjoyed that I enjoyed that very much.

23:38 Cena

23:42 Places that were the Conquistadors came from the castles

23:50 And the cathedrals

23:53 And the Museum's that's all.

23:57 Very interesting

24:00 We had a great time and Spain we enjoyed the food.

24:04 We song 21 bullfight the week after we said we never want to go to another one.

24:13 We enjoy the cathedrals and we're enjoying the art museums.

24:17 And we enjoyed the restaurants in Barcelona and Seville.

24:24 I recall one pan. I had a farm up and we can hear what we say stuff. It's Burg.

24:31 Jenna Farm there have been raised anything except people with no crops. But anyway, we would go in to Ligonier in to the grocery store in the Saturday morning and usually get things for the

24:47 For the day or the weekend and she enjoyed having guess so when we were in the grocery store, we kept meeting all these various people that you knew very well and she kept inviting each one to come to dinner that night the Saturday night and before long she got 10 people for dinner.

25:09 So it doesn't happen to you. We've been to the fish store in Pittsburgh on the Friday before the weekend and she had all these various things. So she made with bouillon base. So we sat around this table with the boy of days and there was the clam shells and there was Muscle Shoals and there were bones in the chicken then and so are always people crowded around the dinner table that was probably only really made for 6 and we was filled with dishes of all kinds and we thought I know it's a time when I want people wondering what are we going to do with these bones and shells?

25:51 So I went out to the kitchen and brought in the wastebasket and Pat with the wastebasket and got passed around behind people as a dinner table on and people were so amused about would have been done with the bones and they were we had more fun at that party, but it was all impromptu. There was no formal invitation beforehand at all came about

26:21 Spontaneously and it was so much fun far more fun than some of the parties you had.

26:27 Plan make many plans 400 other gears.

26:35 China Post

26:44 I think there's someone here.

26:47 Good for her family.

26:50 And she was very generous with her money was very philanthropic and supported the Arts communities in the arts arts activities community of Orchestra. And the chamber music is best Leaf. Do you like we both like chamber music?

27:16 But I think she would like that.

27:28 Switching gears here a little bit again.

27:32 What's been the happiest moment of your life?

27:41 There wasn't one.

27:44 Mobile

27:47 It was my two two marriages.

27:55 When the happiest times

28:02 And my children

28:04 Grandchildren

28:08 I only regret that I

28:10 Song only one of my grandchildren

28:14 When the play was tiny small I lost my side in 1990 and I didn't see I saw my youngest grandson just before I lost my vision, but I've never been able to see my granddaughter.

28:32 Who is very beautiful and a marvelous swimmer?

28:43 So those are the best things I remember.

28:52 What do you most proud of as far as your life goes?

29:00 I think one of my work is it a scientist statistician working with the Physicians and scientists at the University Library one and one there and designing their clinical trials and analyzing them.

29:18 Then you tell me recently that some of your work was excited and something I worked together with.

29:30 Several pediatricians and they had a thorn Department. Dr. Kenneth Rogers and we were working on clinical trial long-term clinical trials.

29:40 To discover what how to best three

29:44 Middle ear disease in children who were having tonsillectomies in the goal was to reduce the number of these tonsillectomies and reduce the number of antibiotic. They were getting

29:56 And because there was a resistance to antibiotic, so there were certain criteria set up with these could be entered into these clinical trials. They were randomized clinical trials. And then there was the assignment was blind people who were in The Trials. Anyway that the criteria that was used to

30:22 Is entrance to the trial has now been established as the standard criteria for deciding whether a child should have

30:30 Tonsillectomy or what kind of antibiotics the child should have and that was very rewarding to know cuz because it's Rousey went on for almost 15 years.

30:44 I start in the early seventies and

30:48 Continued on until early 80s in some regards. It was some

30:56 Discoveries that continue to produce other clinical trials that since then

31:12 How did you get involved with statistics?

31:19 When I started college, I entered as a chemistry major and I could not continue in chemistry because I was I was unable to

31:30 The way things easily quantitative analysis, so I change my major to mathematics.

31:38 And I went to graduate school.

31:42 And then decided that.

31:46 After I have got a master's degree at since we in pure mathematics, and that wasn't for me. I wanted Applied Mathematics. So I

31:55 Finished my doctorate in statistics

32:05 Mortality among workers in the chromatin the street and how the breathing of the Dust

32:16 Impacted on their mortality in terms of lung cancer and heart disease

32:24 And of course the more the longer they worked in this industry and

32:30 The more exposure they had the mortality they had for lung cancer.

32:45 Do you have any favorite stories from your work life?

32:49 Anything that you remember that?

32:56 No, it's not think of any specific favorite stories.

33:03 Although there were almost no.

33:07 Duplication repetition of the same things same kind of Trials it was all different.

33:21 I know you've done a good bit of research and genealogy of

33:26 The families. Is there anything you want to talk about with regard to your research and you stories?

33:37 Well I discovered.

33:39 That I can trace all of my

33:44 I can trace ancestry with all of all of my breaker back to all of my great-grandparents and Beyond in the case of Monument maternal.

33:58 Grandmother her family

34:02 Maternal grandfather. I'm sorry. I have his family can be traced back through a line that goes back to France and Germany in the 14th century.

34:16 I'm not on my grandfather and my grandmother Taylor side of the family.

34:23 Tracer family back to

34:27 1500 or so in Germany

34:31 And I discovered where all my great-grandparents were buried.

34:37 And visited their graves

34:43 Mets record records of the

34:46 All of them

34:49 Family as much as I can, maternal grandparents.

34:54 All four of them and their families

34:58 And I got the family history from Taylor family.

35:05 That was finished in 1996.

35:11 And it's no longer up-to-date. But whoever the members family members who got a Laugh to Keep It up-to-date themselves.

35:24 And during the course of that research, then you find some family members that are still alive that you've never met before you had a number of I'm in a number of family members who I didn't know I had

35:39 Especially the family on the West Coast

35:43 The family of my oldest my grandmother and grandparents. They had 13 children in their oldest son moved to California. So I sent his family lived in California most of them all their lives and there were lots of them that I've never met and some I hadn't seen for years and years.

36:06 And there were others that from my grandfather's family that I didn't know about but discovered when I

36:15 Start investigating the family members.

36:27 Good, so

36:29 Let me talk a little bit about your grandchildren someday. They may have children. Is there anything that you would like to share with them?

36:42 Some some very have to be themselves.

36:51 What does that mean to you since I shouldn't have open minds?

36:56 For everything

36:59 And if they aren't interested in history, they're doomed to repeat it.

37:06 Ioi

37:08 Each has to find his own path and I hope

37:12 They do that in the best way. They know how.

37:26 How would you like to be remembered?

37:34 I'll leave the answer to that question for them.

37:38 For posterity

37:46 Isn't there something that you need?

37:48 Leica

37:51 Others to know about you that

37:56 I repeat all what I'll leave that then

38:01 I bought V posterity the decide.

38:06 With the remember

38:11 Well, thank you. Thank you.