Thoughts on Taylor

No, not that one. My sister, who would have been 69 today. My sister’s name was Mary Taylor Colbert, named after my grandmother, whose maiden name was Taylor.

Sometime in the mid-70s, my sister was hired for a job in New York where she would have been the third Mary in the office. Her boss peremptorily declared, “We can’t have another Mary,” and decreed that Mary would have to be known by her middle name. This was nearly 50 years ago, and while Irish Catholic Marys abounded, there were very few women named Taylor.

From then on my sister was known as Taylor among certain groups of people, although she remained Mary to us. At her memorial service in 1988, I spoke about how she loved giving gifts, carefully selecting something that matched the recipient’s interests, choosing dramatic wrapping paper and ribbon, and always festooning her presents with a flourish — a bird figurine, a fresh flower, a feather or a toy musical instrument. I said that Mary had been a gift to us. Afterward two of her colleagues approached me and asked in a puzzled tone, “Why were you calling her Mary?” Even in the crushing sadness of that day, I had to laugh.

My sister had a humorous outlook on life, and I think she’d get an kick out of sharing her name with the now wildly famous and popular singer and claiming that she was Taylor long before it was a thing.