"My Very Early Years"

My Grandmother Taylor’s tales of Cornelius “the Indian fighter” was the “bug” that bite me to learn as much about our family history and Mayport as I could. Charlie and his sister had been raised by his grandfather Charles Downing Taylor and his wife, Annie. I know he must have heard all of Charles Downing’s stories, his boarding with General and President Zachary Taylor while in a boys’ military academy at Baton Rouge, and his belief in our connection with the General’s ancestors. While stationed in New Orleans, Charlie had visited Tristum Woods, the great grandson of Zachary Taylor. Woods had spent much time and money searching out the Zachary Taylor line. Charlie hoped to establish our relationship to the General, but I am afraid Woods gave him little encouragement. Sadly, Charles died during an operation to remove a cancer growth on his neck during which a jugular vein was cut, and he bled to death. He had the certificate attesting to Charles Downing’s 50-year membership in the Masons. I saw it once and I would love to have it now. But unfortunately, I do not know where that certificate is now. [Since writing this I have been corresponding with Charlie's son, John M. Taylor if Brunswick, Georgia, who has the certificate and sent me a copy via email. Charlie, too, was a Mason belonging to the same Solomon Lodge as his grandfather, Charles Downing Taylor and my father.]

            Even after moving to Hershel St., my folks continued to enjoy dancing, and would look for opportunities to go out with the Lewis brothers to some “hot spot” on weekends. One of my mother’s childhood friends from her early church or convent days, Marguerite Sember, had married my father’s best friend of the three Lewis brothers, Leroy (I think his name was) “Buck” Lewis. Buck was about my father’s age and was Charles D. Taylor, Jr. One of Buck’s brothers, Allen, was older, and one, Oscar, younger. The two couples spent a lot of time together when they could, and the Buck Lewises visited us in Pittsburgh when my father was here.

            The parents of the Lewis boys ran what might be called a restaurant, but it was in their big house downtown. Many a Sunday we would go there to eat “family style.” The food was good and there was always a good crowd of people there.

            On these weekends, I was deposited with my Taylor grandparents. Sometime after we had moved to Avondale, they had moved to a second floor apartment on a small side street off of Hershel St., Plaza Place, not too many blocks away from us. My grandfather Taylor kept a jar full of candy. It was more than once he let me eat so much I got sick before my folks picked me up on Sunday afternoon.

            The apartment had an outside back stairs, giving access to a good back yard for play. It was here that I acquired a taste for raw cabbage. I can recall continually going up those stairs to get another leaf of cabbage from my grandmother.

            It was probably in this period that a British war ship was docked downtown. It was an attraction for all of Jacksonville, so we went down to see it. Some of the British sailors were playing catch ball. I ran between them at the wrong time and got hit by the ball. No severe effects.

            This alley behind our house on Hershel was a place of adventure for me. I was particularly attracted by the trash that was placed for pick up in the alley. There was a house at the end of the alley next to Boone park which was elevated above ground with open slat walls - a dark place of mystery.

            Directly across the alley behind us were the Gleasons. Dick Gleason was my age and we became close friends, continuing so even after both of our families moved to Ortega - we, on Apache and his family in a big house on the Ortega River. I recall he had one sister called “Bebe”, who sometimes “palled” around with us.

            The Gleasons had chickens, the coop being on the edge of the alley. I once experienced the beheading of one of the chickens. The beheading was not done well. I still remember that chicken running around without a head.

            The next street over, Oak, was in front of the Gleasons. I was forbidden to go that far away from home. Once when I did, I received the only whipping that I recall after my father came after me with "fire in his eyes”. There MUST have been other spankings. 

            My father bought a Ford car in this period and, whether it was from trying to make this car run or what, he had a severe attack of appendicitis. I still remember his coming home from work one morning and crawling up the front steps and into the front door of our house. He was rushed to the hospital, but I can recall little if anything else about this episode in my life. The appendix had burst, and it was only with the good help of the city doctor, our family doctor, Dr. Baumgartner, and the good Lord, that he survived. He sold that car later for $1000. I remember his showing me the $1000 bill he had received for the car.

            Which reminds me again. My father attended Duval High School and played basketball (I have somewhere a small silver basketball which he received) but quit school in his early teens to work for a car insurance company in Jacksonville to support his parents. (He was a member of the school paper and was voted to be the most handsome boy in his class.) His brother, Frank Oran Taylor, Jr., had left home early and had gone to Savannah where he met and married Marian Delph. (There is story of unusual coincidence about the Delphs that I will relate in a future chapter, but enough to say at this point that Marian's grandfather was the minister who buried my great uncle Chapman.)

            During this time my father had the opportunity to buy a repossessed car by paying the unpaid insurance. This gave him the means to take his father and mother riding, a great pleasure especially to his father. He was probably 16 or 17, and had no driver’s license. So he went down to the court house and climbed a stairs where sat a big man behind a desk. When he asked this man for a driver’s license, the man’s only question was, “Boy, do you have a dollar?”

            This was probably the same court house where some years before, probably on a dare from one of the Lewis brothers with whom he ran,  he had climbed a drainage pipe up to the second floor where it turned out a court was in session. The judge told him to get down in so many words, which my father quickly did, probably thinking he was going to be arrested. That was one of a number of their “pranks” they did as boys in the then small old town of Jacksonville. My father was a good swimmer. I suspect one of their "pranks" was swimming in the St. Johns River off one of the docks - forbidden since this was very dangerous and many boys drown in that river.

            Another somewhat funny episode about me while living on Hershel St. The street was then not paved, but was only a sandy stretch of road in front of our house. A street car track ran down the middle. One day my mother was bathing me and left me to play while she went to take care of another chore. I took the opportunity of her absence to escape from the tub and get out into that sand pile of a street, ”bare ass” naked. Our next door neighbor, Gladys Crenshaw, hearing the continuous ringing of a bell, went out to see what it was. There I was down playing in the sand in front of the trolley car with the conductor angrily ringing his bell to get me to move - me, paying no attention to him. Gladys grabbed me up and marched into our house to give my mother “you know what.” Gladys was what we call today somewhat “foul mouthed”. (The Crenshaws were some way cousins of my Grandmother Taylor. Jackie (Edgar) Crenshaw, about my age, came to one of my early birthdays on Herschel St.)

            On the other side of our house from the Crenshaws the Tuttles lived, both to me “elderly.” They had one boy, somewhat older but with whom I played at times. Once they had a pile of fertilizer dumped in their front yard. This was just of the right consistency that one could tunnel into it, which I did, to the ire of Mrs. Tuttle and my mother who had to wash her smelly son.

            Another episode of the bath room which was positioned between my back room and my folks’ bed room. The chocolate “X-lax” was kept in there. One day I went and found that laxative and ate the whole thing. There apparently were no ill effects that I can recall.

            My bedroom was in the back corner of the house and had a hard wood floor. The small kitchen occupied the other back corner. One time I was throwing one of my temper tantrums, jumping up and down on my bed. I missed the bed and landed nose first on the wood floor. I am sure my nose was a bloody mess, but my mother apparently over time molded it back the way it is today, with the “notch” on the left side. An irritation with my eye glasses. No longer the nose which appears in early pictures of my mother and me.

            Some years ago while visiting Jacksonville I stopped my rental car to get out and take a picture of the Hershel St. house. A woman came out of the house as I was taking the picture and asked me why I was taking the picture. When I told her that as a very young child I had lived there she invited me in. She said it was usual that she would invite a strange man into her house, but as a real estate agent she was interested in who then had owned the house and other things about how the house looked. For one thing she had enclosed the side porch off the living room for a room for her son when he was home. I spent many a rainy day playing out on that porch. The two lamp fixtures that had been on each side of the centrally located fire place were gone. The old tin shed in back that my father kept his car in is gone, and a garage has been added connected to the back of the house.

            The living room in the front of the house, accessed as one comes in the front door, seemed especially small as did my bedroom in the back of the house. I can still see in my mind's eye my first Christmas tree in one corner with a ride-able, red fire engine with detachable hoses under that tree. “Is he come yet- is he come yet?”, my speaking of Santa Claus. My folks said my eyes popped when I saw that tree and fire engine. I was not kind to my cousin Jack when the Williams came to visit us that Christmas day - I did not want him to touch the fire truck.

            In 1935 or 36 I began school at the Fishweir Grammar School. I must have walked there, most likely accompanied by someone. Our first grade teacher asked us all to say our name. When she came to me I promptly said, “Buddy Williams,” which was a sign on my desk when my folks came to visit. I have always contended that she asked me my first name and my mother’s name. Whether this is so, the answer obviously is lost in the fog of yesterday. I had a few other “quarrels” with that teacher, which even continued with teachers through second grade after we had moved to Ortega. At one point in the first grade I threatened to jump out of the window and go home.

            One memory that embarrassed me for a long time when I thought about it was an “accident” I had while in first grade. We carried our lunch boxes to school, mine with a thermos bottle with milk. One day I got mixed up and thinking it was lunch break - I was always hungry - I took the box outside for the much shorter play period. When this ended so soon, I hurried to close my lunch box, not closing the thermos tightly, and dripped milk all the way back to the class room.

            Toward the end of my first school year we moved to Ortega into an old run down house my father bought for a “song” from Ernest Anders, the city commissioner and his “big” boss. My father  spent much time with a “one armed” paper hanger, the story goes, renovating the house to make it livable. More about this “haunted” house and my “adventures” in Ortega in a later chapter.

​

​