Margaret Hukill Taylor

Letters
November, 1921
January 1929
March 15, 1935

Handwritten Excerpt (130 KB)

Photograph
As You Like It, Junior Year

1904 Program:

Present address: Oil City, Pa.

Margaret Hukill is spending the winter in Franklin, Pa., where Marian Dibert has been visiting her.

March 1905 Kalends:

Margaret Hukill has been visiting Jane Dobbins, '01, in Morristown, N.J., and Carolyn and Mabel Golding in Wilmington, Del.

November 1906 Kalends:

Margaret Hukill will be married in November to Mr. Edgar Taylor of Buffalo.

December 1906 Kalends:

Margaret Hukill was married November twenty-seventh to Mr. Edgar A. Taylor and will make her home in Buffalo, N.Y.

October 1929 Alumnae Quarterly:

Margaret Hukill Taylor has a daughter entering Wellesley this fall.

January 1930 Alumnae Quarterly:

The Quarterly extends its sincere sympathy to Margaret Hukill Taylor, whose daughter, Margaret Taylor, died on September 16th. Margaret had attended Abbott Academy for two years until she was forced to give up her studies because of ill health. The Quarterly listed her incorrectly as entering Wellesley this fall.

July 1930 Alumnae Quarterly:

Margaret Hukill Taylor could not return. She has suffered a great sorrow in the death of her only daughter.

July 1931 Alumnae Quarterly:

"Our eldest boy, Edgar, Jr., graduates from Amherst, June 22nd- he belonged to 1930, but stayed out a year for certain practical reasons. He is a real joy and a student and has practically made his own way right along. Part of his year of leave was spent as a deck-cadet on an 'American Export' freighter, plying the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea. It was a novel, educational and enlightening experience for him; and he did meet or make some escapades as daring and interesting as those of DIck Halliburton. The younger boy, Bruce, is still in Prep-School, and a bit handicapped by his health.
As for myself, I got into trouble by attending the YWCA National Convention in Detroit a year ago - that work is my hobby. Being a rural person, our problems here are quite different from the regular run og town or city associations. For that reason, they needed a rural representative of "The Budget Reviewing Committee" which sits for a week in November each year at National headquarters inNew York. It was a wonderful experience for me to get a grasp of the work throughout the whole, and understand plans being made for the future financing of the national work, which involves an expenditure of some millions each year. They are a very interesting and charming group of women who head the various departments and the salaried secretaries are most efficient and earnest. Their unemployment conference followed so I stayed over for it - they expected possibly fifty women from all over the U.S.- and one hundred and eighty-six came. The summary of their discussions after dwo days was given Mrs. Gilbreth (President Hoover's appointee) as well as the use of all YWCA resources. So I came home feeling even our little rural section had its part in the natinal conduct of affairs.
I am still kept busy summers with my 'Taylor Made Jams and Jellies' but am so glad to have my friends stop in whenever they are passing."

November 1936 Alumnae Quarterly:

Margaret Hukill Taylor is running her fruit farm on Lake Erie by herself this year, with one son teaching in Connecticut, and the other studying airplane construction in California. Margaret represented Goucher at the inauguration of the new president of Wells College on October 23, in Aurora, NY.

November 1938 Alumnae Quarterly

Margaret Hukill Taylor has sold her beautiful farm at Westfield, N.Y. on Lake Erie and is "just thinking for a year till I decide where to locate permanently. I have my New Hampshire cottage for summers, where I weathered the hurricane last month. My son, Bruce, has entered college in Cleveland for an engineering course so I want to linger in this vicinity for a while. I am still making beautiful tweeds (for both men and women) on my looms."

July 1939 Alumnae Quarterly:

We did not hear from Margaret Hukill Taylor, but know she has sold her grape farm at Westfield, N.Y., and at present is living in a small hotel, continuing with her weaving all the year round, and her baking at Christmas.

Summer 1949 Alumnae Quarterly:

Margaret Hukill Taylor sold her fruit farm in Westfield, N.Y. in 1938, and since then spends five months of each year up in the White Mountains in the cottage her husband's family built in 1904. She writes: "I found out years ago that I had no hay fever so long as I stayed here, so that settled my needs. I usually spend a few weeks in the spring and fall in Westfield, before starting for som e warmer climate or my boys' homes during winters.
Edgar Jr. is working in a new department of Education for the State of California, so is living in San Diego, and has two small sons.
Bruce is still an air-craftsman for American Airlines in Tulsa, Okla., so I couldn't be much further away from both families. Bruce has a little one-year-old daughter, so I spent three months with them during the past winter. The past six winters I've spent in Tucson, Ariz. - St. Pete, Fla. - Los Angeles- again Tulsa= Clearwater, Fla.-1949 Tulsa. You see what I mean by 'hopping around.'
I still stick to my hobby-now a business- of weaving textiles. The outlet is here among the summer residents in cottages and the big hotels within 25 miles. The principal textile is tweeds for men's and women's suitings, tho' I make linens and baby blankets and scarves and couch throws- almost entirely to order...Sometimes I feel the need to leave my loom entirely for several months. I'm not sixteen any more, but my friends seem to think I'm equal to it all. Praise be, I have this positive thing to do.
The change of scenery and the charming customers I have give me a fairly broad view of the country and its opinions. After all, it's people who make up the world, and I like people..POractically two-thirds of the summer people either in cottages or at the hotels, are in Who's Who, and the background of year-'round residents are these sturdy, fine-principled New Englanders."

Fall 1950 Alumnae Quarterly:

Margaret Hukill Taylor sends word from her home in New Hampshire: "Don't know as I have much to add to my last "effusion," as this has been a pretty quiet summer up here. My brother joins me in July usually, and this year spent two whole months, leaving only last week.
I drove down to Boston July 7th to meet his plane coming in from Cleveland-I hate driving in Boston-get lost every time I turn around - this time I found myself passing the North Station and then the docks before I hailed a cop and told him I was LOST. He pointed to the Statler six blocks ahead-even when I got there I couldn't make a left turn, but go around more blocks and through an alley! ! !
I had never been down on Cape Cod; nearest approach was through the Canal on an Easter vacation trip during my college days. So we drove down on the Cape and browsed for several days---out to Provinectown, etc-and ended by looking over the Marine Laboratory at Wood's Hole where Miss Peebles spent so many summers, as well as other science students. It was raining, so we gave up going over to Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket.
Lulie Hooper '96 and Gertrude Nickerson '00 were over at the Club in Crawford Notch for some weeks, and I saw them several times. We had just missed each other in California last winter. They were in La Jolla for a month and I in La Mesa (outside San Diego) but neither of its knew it. Then Miss Peebles wanted me to come to Los Angeles for the Goucher Tea given for them by Lillie's sister, but it occurred just as I was making ready to return east.
My cottage is right on Federal route #2 - my sign down at the driveway
Margaret Taylor
Weaves & Tweeds
so I'm sure many Goucherites must pass. Wish they would stop for a Social chat. I expect to remain here during most of October before going to Clearwater, Florida for the winter. The best month of the year up here is October."

Summer 1952 Alumnae Quarterly

Margaret Hukill Taylor surprises by the vigor of her movements. Remember how the Chinese, after Lindbergh flew alone to Paris, were said to have given him the name Wun Long Hop? It applies to Margaret too! She writes: "Instead of New Hampshire, I'm sitting in the sun in Florida; motored down the middle of November before I had to skate!
And I have a dandy little shop right near the entrance to the Belleview-Biltmore Hotel - "Weaves & Tweeds." An intimate friend finally persuaded me to try selling wool in Florida; and this is my second year, having been sufficiently encouraged by last winter's venture. I meet such fine people - many weavers and commercial spinners from up north - but usually those interested in hand crafts, or in individual products. I carry these beautiful imports from Ireland and Scotland to fill a variety which I could not produce alone. A great many ask for a special color and pattern, so I weave it for them - really a custom business, you see.
And I am so thankful to have a very definite goal in life (too many feel put on the shelf at my age) and a satisifaction in my insatiable creative instinct. My boys are so far away- Bruce with his family (one daughter) in Tulsa, Okla., Edgar and his wife and two boys, doing administrative work with San Diego County Schools. So I fly out to see both of them between seasons, for I still go to New Hampshire from June till November.
Lulie Hooper '96 and Gertrude Nickerson '00 drop in each summer while staying at Crawford Notch. Ida Evans Bixler '02 and husband found me this summer enroute from their usual fishing vacation over in Maine. I'm always so pleased when old friends hunt me up.
I'm hoping to be at Reunion in 1953; plan for Marion Dibert Suppes and me to show up, if at all possible."

Winter 1955 Alumnae Quarterly:

"The older we get, the more our old friends mean to us, so I was grieved to hear about Martha. I stopped to see her just before the war, as I was en route to New Orleans.
As to myself, I seem to be 'The Woman on the Go' both spring and fall, but I stay put winters and summers. My boys live far away and cannot come to me easily. I have to find the time and opportunity to keep up with them and with my four grandchildren. Edgar, Jr. is an administrator in the schools of Portland, Ore., specializing in the problems of the unusual child, - very dull and very bright. His children are both boys. Bruce still lives in Tulsa. He has a daughter and a son.
I took the month of May to fly to Portland and then to Tulsa, spending two weeks with each of them. I could not have chosen a more colorufl or beautiful time for Portland, for the rhodedendrons were huge and in rainbow masses.
It was too early for the roses in Portland, but when I flew to Tulsa I found them in full bloom. And such a city of flowers, - acres of both formal and informal gardens, more than in any city I know anything about. They grow the wisteria in tree shape as they do in Japan.
Back to my mountain home in New Hampshire by June 15 an dthe happy life I lead there. But we had a most unusual experience this year in a pest of bears! The berries in the woods did not ripen on account of continuous rains, so the poor hungry beasts came down to our apple trees and gardens for food. So there was an open season and a bounty on killing them. They like lambsl they tear up trees and gardens, so we had to hunt them down and kill them. One night in October, a heavily loaded truck was run into by a 235 pound bear right in front of my house. It was a mercy that the truck was not overturned, for inside the cab was the driver, his wife, and two small children, but the bear was killed.
Now I am down herer in the land of sunshine, my place newly decorated and open for the season. If any of my friends come this way, as Mabel Day did last winter, stop in and see me. It's grand to chat with old friends across the years."

Winter 1957 Alumnae Quarterly:

"I think the highlight of this last year was a ten weeks' visit from my copper-headed grandson, who lives in Portland, Ore. He drove east with a teacher and his wife who wanted to do some summer studying at Teachers' College in New York. He joined me in Hatfield, and we drove on to New Hampshire. With six boys about his own age in the neighborhood, there was never a dull moment - climbing trips, fishing, swimming, tennis, square dances twice a week, and all the other activities that alert and fun-loving boys can think of. He also entertained us with cartoons of all of us - pretty good, I thought. How I hated to see him leave!
Another satisfying development came about this year in the publication of the life of Rudyard Kipling, written by an Englishman named Carrington. Some of our era may remember Carolyn Taylor who lived on Madison Avenue near Druid Hill Park and often attended college functions. She and her sister, Mrs. Samuel A. Hill, were my husband's first cousins. Mrs. Hill's husband was a teacher in the college at Allahabad, India, in the 80's and Kipling made their home his headquarters when he returned from his education in England. Many of his early stories were written at their desk and edited and criticized by the Hills. They were life-long friends, but in no other biography of Kipling was there any mention of their influence on his writing. The daughter evidently fave Carrington all the papers and information and Mrs. Hill receives full credit in the book for her help. It was too bad that she died before this recognition of her part was made public. Lulie Hooper '96 and Gertrude Nickerson '00 were very kind to her in her last years when she was incapacitated by heart trouble.
I plan to spend Christmas week with my two sisters who have a winter home in Naples, Fla. My route takes me within a few miles of Mollie Cullom Walker. Possibly I can detour and say hello."

Fall 1957 Alumnae Quarterly:

Still weaving, still achieving - that is our Margaret Hukill Taylor, with her business well established, which grew so naturally out of her hobby. She says she has no news, but it is good to know that she still carries on contendly and profitably.

Spring 1958 Alumnae Quarterly:

Margaret Hukill Taylor reports that the weather in Florida is better, but already growing sultry and hot. She was in the midst of preparations for closing her shop and thinking about northern New Hampshire when she wrote: she's there now, of course, and doubtful if she will be down Baltimore way in June. Keep your fingers crossed, friends; maybe she will change her mind.

Summer 1959 Alumnae Quarterly:

Margaret Hukill Taylor wrote from Westfield, N.J. just before going back to New Hampshire. She was expecting a long visit from her older son and family for the summer. Margaret spent part of the winter visiting members of her family in Cleveland, Tulsa, Pasadena, and Portland. She says there isn't much possibility of her getting down to Baltimore. She has closed her weaving project in Florida and her address henceforth is Westport, N.Y.

Winter 1961 Alumnae Quarterly:

Margaret Hukill Taylor closed her Florida shop of hand-woven fabrics about two years ago but still has the shop in New Hampshire. When she last wrote she said the "foliagers" (thanks for the new word, Margaret) were not driving through any longer and that meant to close shop and head for Florida, where her sister lives.

Summer 1961 Alumnae Quarterly:

Margaret Hukill Taylor has gone to her place in northern New Hampshire, where she enjoys the summers so much - this year especially as her oldest son with his family expects to spend August with her. She flew about the country last winter - Cleveland, Tulsa, Pasadena, Portland, visiting friends and relatives.

Fall 1963 Alumnae Quarterly:

Margaret Hukill Taylor will stay in the north until the first of November or until the last bright leaf has blown away from the maple trees that abound there. The day after she wrote she was taking her grandson part way to Amherst, so we know she still does some driving.

Winter 1967 Alumnae Quarterly:

Margaret Hukill Taylor enjoys her western trips, visiting her people, and watching the vast changes that seem to take place before your eyes, like the establishment of the Smith Art Museum and teh new Art Center. She will be at her Randolph, N.H., home until the snow flies, when she takes off for Florida.

Spring 1967 Alumnae Quarterly:

Margaret Hukill Taylor will soon be making her way back to her beloved loom, on which she weaves such lovely fabrics, and where she enjoys the company of interesting neighbors.

Summer 1969 Alumnae Quarterly:

Margaret Hukill Taylor follows the political happenings, not taking any active part, but keeping informed as we all should.

Winter 1970 Alumnae Quarterly:

Margaret Hukill Taylor's move to Florida in October was just her usual flit when the New England autumn turns gray and cold. Her summer saw many happy days visiting family and friends.