Taylor-Tot Baby Stroller

The first two photos below feature a happy baby--me--on a sidewalk in front of a house in Gadsden sometime in 1952 or 1953. I was born in March 1952, so these might have been taken that fall or even a warm Alabama winter day. 

I showed these photos to brother Richard recently, and he wondered about the "Taylor-Tot" name on the stroller. I thought, "Ha! There's a blog post in that...." So here we are.

The Francis F. Taylor Company was founded in the Cincinnati, Ohio, area in 1921, and seems to have been incorporated in that state in December 1924. The firm moved to Frankfurt, Kentucky, in 1964; I have so far been unable to determine what happened after that date. 

In addition to strollers, the company made tricycles, doll carriages, wagons and bicycles. A stroller patent was granted in 1931. The Smithsonian Museum of American History has a catalog and price list in its collection. Based on comments here, the stroller was apparently very popular. Several can be found for sale on eBay, Etsy, etc. 

And now we have evidence of an early 1950's sighting in Alabama.  

Here's another photo of a Taylor-Tot in the early 1950's.

Source: The Baby Stoller: A Visual History

The house mom and dad were renting in Gadsden when the above photos were taken looked like this in 2012. 

Some Family Photos from Back in the Day

Well, the 1960's anyway.

Most of these photos were taken by yours truly, or at least using the black and white camera I had in those days. The location for the first four was my paternal grandparents' house on Chandler Street in Gadsden. I imagine we were visiting for Sunday lunch. The other four were taken at our family home on Lakewood Drive in Huntsville. Some comments are below each one. 

I also have photos from the 1950's that will do just nicely for another post someday soon...and probably more from the 1960's...

Here I am on the left along with younger brother Richard and our grandfather Amos J. Wright, Sr. Pawpaw worked for the L&N Railroad for many years and died in 1975. I remember one of his favorite sayings: "See you in the funny papers." I've written about his World War I training at Auburn here. 

This photograph features my mother and grandmother washing dishes. Mawmaw seems about to laugh at her silly grandson taking pictures. She died in 1997. That little iron skillet hung on the wall there for a long time.  

Here's Mawmaw again sitting in their long narrow den off the kitchen. I think she's looking at some photographs. The clock on the television--a Zenith, I think--tells us it's one-thirty. Mawmaw would later move her Singer sewing machine to that alcove on the left where it sat for many years. That ancient machine is now sitting in my daughter Becca's home in Oklahoma: 

Younger brother Richard poses in the same den a half hour earlier. That clock on the shelf behind him is still in the family. On the table on the lower left is a candy dish Mawmaw always kept there and a book. Wonder if it was one I was reading and brought with me? Looks like a library call number on the lower spine. That appears to be one of Mawmaw's African violets on the television with the other clock. 

Now we come to the house in Huntsville. Our beagle Duchess surveys her back yard domain from the roof over the basement entrance. 

Here's Duchess behind bars--er, the fence--probably wondering why I'm taking pictures instead of playing with her. 

And here's Duchess in another roof pose. We lived in a house halfway up a fairly steep hill, and sometimes she would be sitting on the other side of the roof. That gave passersby coming up the hill or even some neighbors the impression that we had a dog on our roof.

Brother Richard faces the camera in one of our bedrooms; it looks too neat to be his. Before he became seriously interested in Alabama archaeology, dad did a lot of woodworking and that desk and lamp are two of his pieces.  

Beulah Vee's Cedar Chest (5)

To recap: in a series of five posts I'm exploring the contents of a cedar chest belonging to my aunt Beulah Vee Wright, who died in 1939 at the age of 18. Background on her and this project can be found in part 1.

Part 2 is here, part 3 here, and part 4 here. 

Here's the title page from Beulah Vee's high school yearbook for her senior year. I've included several pages below where she appears in various organizational photos. 

She was the business manager for the yearbook that year. Her pose on the left of this photo was seen in the previous post, extracted and framed. 

In this montage Beulah Vee is at the very top right of the "K".

Here's the cover of the Etowah High School yearbook for 1939.

They had colorful lunch tins in the 1930's. 

The case for Beulah Vee's glasses give us the name of her Gadsden optometrist. Taylor was President of the Alabama Optometrists Association in 1914-16. 

Her cedar chest was made by the Cavalier Corporation in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In addition to these cedar hope chests, they made various exclusive products for Coca Cola. After many corporate changes, the firm closed in 2000. Many examples of their hope chests are available on eBay. 

Here's that famous "Keepsafe Dial Lock".

The chest contained a number of valentines from elementary school in the late 1920's. Daughter Becca framed some of them to hang on the wall of the Beulah Vee Guest Room in Oklahoma. 

The chest holds some fascinating family items. These typed invitations are to Beulah Vee's parents' wedding on December 19, 1915. My grandmother Rosa Mae turned 16 the following month. 

This label is on the back of the mirror seen in the photo below. I presume the entire bedroom suite came from this company in Georgia, and my grandparents bought it at Ross Granling Furniture Company in Gadsden. 

Here's the bedroom at my daughter's house in Oklahoma where Beulah Vee's cedar chest and bedroom furniture are now located. A nightstand to the right of the bed is not visible. You can see the framed valentines hanging on the wall. 

The cedar chest contains many other remnants of Beulah Vee's life not shown in these blog posts. I feel I've come to know her, a woman who died over 12 years before I was born, better than many people I've actually met in my life.

Beulah Vee's Cedar Chest (4)

To recap: in a series of five posts I'm exploring the contents of a cedar chest belonging to my aunt Beulah Vee Wright, who died in 1939 at the age of 18. Background on her and this project can be found in part 1.

You can find part 2 here and part 3 here and part 5 here. 

Beulah Vee's funeral service was held the day after her death at John S. Jones Elementary School. She had attended this school, as one of her certificates of attendance shown in a previous post demonstrates. However, the location may have been chosen because a crowd was expected. The school is now located in Rainbow City. 

As this notice says, Beulah Vee was buried in the cemetery at Old Harmony Baptist Church on Rainbow Drive, then located outside Gadsden and in the town of Rainbow City today. She died at home; the family lived just down the road and attended this church. Many of our ancestors are buried there. However, her remains were later moved by her parents to Forrest Cemetery in Gadsden, where they are also buried. Jerry B. Jones, Jr., published Old Harmony Cemetery: A History, Rainbow City, Alabama in 2009.

Beulah Vee and her parents Rosa Mae Wright and Amos J. Wright, Sr., are buried in Forrest Cemetery in Gadsden. In the photo above the back of the cemetery's iconic chapel can be seen. 

I've recently obtained a copy of Beulah Vee's death certificate. We see that she died at 9:30 a.m. on December 10, 1939. She was attended by Dr. J.W. Ford, who was the family physician. Cause of death is listed as bilateral pulmonary tuberculosis, which explains why her funeral was held the next day. 

Some years later my mother's obstetrician in Gadsden, Dr. Ford's son, told her his father decided after her death that Beulah Vee may have died of leukemia. People can live for years with tuberculosis, but Beulah Vee's sickness began in March 1939 and she deteriorated rapidly until her death. 

My grandmother filled a scrapbook with these sympathy cards. 

I can proudly say my aunt had a connection to Auburn University.  Her brother and my mother met and married at Auburn. I attended Auburn and met wife Dianne there. My daughter Becca met her husband Matt Leon there also. Beulah Vee's father did his World War I military training at Auburn. Seems the family has a connection to Auburn. War Eagle! 

Newspapers have historically been a source of information about many people, not just the famous or infamous. I wonder if the trip mentioned above was the one where the photo of Beulah Vee and my dad in part 1 of this series was taken. I presume these notices appeared in the Gadsden Times. 

Unfortunately this charming note is undated. I wonder if they ever did go to another picnic--or smiling contest. Remember that memory book Beulah Vee received on her 17th birthday and shown in part 2? Here's that boyfriend Joe Lane again. 

This page and the three below are from the extensive notebook my grandmother kept during Beulah Vee's illness from March until December 1939. There are daily notes for temperature and medicines taken, doctor visits, costs, etc. 

Quite a few folks turned out for this "delightful lawn party" held at the Wright home on Rainbow Drive. 

This photograph will be explained in the final post!

The final post will take an extensive look into Beulah Vee's presence in her last high school yearbook.