Life is A Wonderful Gift
Life is A Wonderful Gift
Rest in Peace, Roy E. Taylor, Sr.
Yesterday, we laid my grandfather, Roy E. Taylor, Sr. to rest after 90 years of full-throated living. To honor him in these pages, I offer you a copy of his obituary and the eulogy I delivered at his funeral.
Rest in Peace.
Announcement
Roy Edward Taylor, Sr. passed from this life to the next in the afternoon hours of February 3, 2023. He was born on November 3, 1932 in rural Coffee County, Georgia to Roy Clinton and Ruth Teston Taylor, and raised his family and built his businesses in Valdosta.
Although no formal medical diagnosis was ever proffered, Roy had a mental condition which allowed him to enjoy life more than anyone other person ever has. He would wake early each morning and share the observation that “Life is a wonderful gift!” with whoever would answer the phone in the pre-dawn hours. He, quite simply, loved to be in love — with work, with family, with food, with women, with life.
Roy was a family man of the marrying type, often bragging that he had married 5 women, 6 times and that he was always on the hunt for the next lucky woman. He was a strong father to strong, intelligent and dedicated children. He didn’t recognize a distinction between his natural children and stepchildren, they were all “his” in his heart.
In his days, he was successful in whatever he turned his hand to, building successful businesses in many fields - dry cleaning, restaurants, insurance, real estate, and private lending. He enjoyed the profits of those businesses through travel, enjoying time on the lake, feeding his fish and always looking for the next good investment.
He grew up in the most abject poverty, in the deepest part of the Depression. He once remembered a Christmas where the family had the clothes on their back and a single nickel. That profound sense of not having enough drove his charitable efforts for children. No one ever asked him for a donation that would benefit children and was turned away empty-handed. Through his generosity, tens of thousands of children have had their lives improved.
A man of abiding integrity all his days, Roy would deliver the unvarnished truth to those he thought needed to hear it. This blessed some, irked others, but delighted him to his core. He couldn’t abide a liar or a cheat and took on the mantle of keeping politicians honest and focused on the public good.
He was preceded in death by those he loved dearly — his parents, sister Lydia Mae Flanagan, sons Eddie and Eric Taylor and David Purdy, and grandson Trent Taylor— he spoke of them often, with longing and passion. His own loss will be felt keenly by those who remain — children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews, too many to name — all aware of Roy’s central legacy: Work hard and with integrity at things worth doing, love big and treat life as a wonderful gift.
Over many conversations Roy made it clear that at his passing, his life should be celebrated. His family intends to do just that with a visitation of friends and family on Wednesday, from 5:00 to 7:00pm at Carson-McLane Funeral Home. His farewell service will be at Carson-McLane Chapel on Thursday at 2:00pm with an interment to follow. The family will welcome guests at Park Place from 4:00-6:00. In lieu of flowers, Roy would have preferred a donation to the Eddie Taylor Foundation, a fund of the Community Foundation of South Georgia.
Eulogy by Trey Taylor
I am not up to this task. I doubt very much that any person can reduce the life of someone they know to a few minutes of funny stories and uplifting messages. I am quite certain no one could do that with the life of Roy Taylor. So today I just want to share a bit of information about Roy that you might not have known and share a few lessons and stories he shared with me over the years.
Often as we go through life we meet people and say “he reminds of another person I know.” These words have never been said of Roy Taylor. He doesn’t remind you of any person you’ve ever known. He was an original.
My Dad, Roy’s oldest son, once told me “Daddy likes to be the bride at every wedding and the “guest of honor” at every funeral.” I shared that with Roy last year and he laughed, enjoying the joke at his expense. Then his eyes narrowed and he said “Don’t you tell that at my funeral,” so I won’t.
Roy was born into really abject poverty in rural Coffee County, Georgia in 1932 to two loving parents. He recalled to me once about a time in summer, when the family was each wearing the only set of clothes they owned and his dad showed them a nickel, all the money they had in the world. Catch that, they literally didn’t have two nickels to rub together. If you understand that poverty, you can begin to get an insight into why Roy worked as hard as he did, was as successful as he was, and ultimately was as generous as he was.
His parents were never supposed to be together. She was engaged to another man and his Dad saw her on the train platform, wooed her, and married her 4 days later. They had two children, little Edward and his sister Lydia Mae. His father died when Roy was 11 and his mother then remarried the man she had jilted. He took her kids in, had more kids and threw Roy out of the house when he was in the 9th grade, the last formal year of schooling he ever received.
Remembering his Dad, Roy told me a story once that taught me about one of his core beliefs. It was another Christmas and his Dad wanted to get some money for presents. He went to the man whose fields he was sharecropping and asked for an advance to buy something for the kids. The man agreed, asked him to plow under a 5 acre field of clover and gave him some money. On Christmas morning, Roy received a pocket knife that cost 15 cents.
His dad then went to plow the field, guiding the mule up and down each furrow for most of the day. When he was finished, he saw little Roy sitting at the end of a row crying, he had lost his pocketknife as he followed his dad up and down the field that day. They looked for it but couldn’t find it, so his dad took the mule and plowed the field over again, looking for the knife. They never found it but Roy learned that day that “Love is a verb. It’s what you do for others.” He lived that lesson every day of his life.
That doesn’t mean that he always got it right. He didn’t. None of us do, but in his heart he wanted to help others become the people they were supposed to be in this life. Roy always had good intentions, I know that in my heart. Those intentions didn’t always play out the way he thought they would.
There’s a famous story in the family when he was driving down a rainy street in Waycross one afternoon. The storm was really throwing it down with rain and he noticed a lady walking carrying a baby in her arms, wrapped tight and held close to her chest as she got soaked with the rain. He slammed on the brakes and hurried to her side, exclaiming “why are you out in this rain, let me ge you in my car and get you and your baby dry!” She accepted his help, climbed in the car and set her “baby” down in the front seat. When Roy took his seat and started driving again he looked over to steal a peak at the baby who hadn’t made a sound so far … It was two mullet fish. The lady had been to the fishmarket and was headed home when the storm caught her unexpectedly. Good intentions.
Another time, Roy and my Dad were driving to a home far out in the South Georgia country. Dirt Roads and stands of pine trees - prime snake country. As they rounded a corner, a massive cottonmouth was stretched out across the road sunning itself. Roy slammed on the brakes and grabbed his gun from the glovebox shouting “My god, that snake’s gonna get at the children!” He stood over the snake and unloaded and all my dad could hear was – BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM! – “Give me some bullets!” as the snake slithered away unharmed. Good intentions.
Still another time, my cousins and I were staying with Roy at his lakehouse in Cordele over the summer and were driving into town to get some dinner and play at the local arcade. As we were going along, Roy spied something out of the corner of his eye and slammed on brakes fishtailing all over the place until the car slid to rest on the shoulder of the road in front of a vast cow pasture. Far off in the distance was a long figure with a large burlap sack harvesting mushrooms from nature's bounty left behind by the cows. Roy ran to the trunk of his car and for several minutes all we could hear was the clicking and snapping of metal pieces. He then stepped up to the roadside with an uzi and began firing at the figure who was a good 2 miles away. He was cursing and bullets were spitting and the man was in zero danger whatsoever. He just shifted his bag to the other shoulder and loped off into the woods as Roy rejoined us, very satisfied that he had foiled the drug crime of the century. Good intentions.
There are hundreds of little stories like this, or little foibles, where he does the right thing in maybe not the right way so much. I don’t know if you know this, but the man never actually said the words “goodbye” to end a phone call. The line would just go dead. My wife once came to me, white as a sheet telling me that my Papa had just said goodbye to her on the phone.
He also had this job, I don’t know where he got it, maybe the Pope gave it to him or something, where he was the one to tell people they were too fat. Literally anyone he met, he felt perfectly fine with telling them that they could afford to lose a few pounds. And he meant well, he really did, it was never to be mean. My wife and I had a baby in October and Roy visited to meet and hold the baby. And like clockwork, without fail, he picked the baby up and said “My God, this baby is fat, ya’ll are feeding her too much!”
And his favorite thing in the world was to wake people up at 4:45 in the morning and tell them that “Life is a wonderful gift!” He’d call family members, elected officials, agents who worked for him, anyone foolish enough to answer the phone to get the day’s benediction.
There is this tendency we have at funerals to raise the departed into a sainted figure and there is nothing that Roy would have hated more. And losing Roy’s salty side doesn’t serve our memories of him anyway. I shared an observation once with a family member that Roy was both the lightning and the thunder. He could light up a room with his goodwill, his charity, his humor, his strength and his love. Many of us felt like we were the only people in the world when his attention was on us. But man, oh man, could he be the thunder, too. You can ask any person who he ever caught in a lie, or any politician who cheated the public … his wrath was a biblical and scary thing to behold.
My brother once told a tale which I didn’t believe. He and Roy were driving on North Valdosta Road and he was going 90 miles an hour with a cellphone in his ear. A Lowndes County Sheriff's deputy hit him with the lights and pulled him over. Trent looked up and before Roy’s car had even fully stopped he was bending through the deputies window raising sand and telling him not to ever pull him over again. He got back in his car, slammed on the gas and slung gravel and dirt on the deputies patrol car. As they sped down the road, Roy said to Trent “I’m going to jail! Is he coming after me?” with a sheepish grin on his face. The deputy never moved, just sat there shaken. Years later I was at a party and Trent introduced me to the deputy who confirmed every detail.
Maybe it was a character flaw? I don’t know but it seems to be the perfect balance to a man who was willing to give so much that he required so much in return.
Roy had a stroke 3 weeks ago that paralyzed his right side and took away his speech. He stayed in the hospital for a week and then made the decision to enter hospice and pass away at home. It was not a decision I supported, but I supported his right to make his own choice.. Even his doctors were in tears as they begged him to make the effort in rehab. He raised his good hand, and ended the discussion.
He was at home for a week, and he reluctantly received family and friends, not wanting to be seen as less than his best. He could muster the slightest bit of speech at great effort and I asked him once if he was proud of me, he nodded. I told I was proud of him and proud to carry his name. I told him that I loved him and asked if he loved me. He nodded and I asked him to tell me. With immense effort, he crooned out a little sing-song “I love you,” the last words he said on this earth.
On Friday afternoon, we had cleared the room as it became clear that his journey to this side of heaven was coming to an end. As I held his hand, he took a deep shuddering breath, closed his eyes and went to be with the Lord. And true to form he never even said goodbye.
What remains is the legacy he left, the closest thing to a credo he had: Word hard and with integrity at things worth doing, love big and remember that “Life is a wonderful gift.”