This history is about Ralph Taylor, one of Vera's brothers.
It was found in the personal albums of Doris Sessions (and has been transcribed with indications of punctuation or spelling corrections.) I do not know WHO wrote it or WHEN it was written, although clues throughout it suggest it was likely compiled by one of Vera's sisters who had interviewed or spoken with Ralph's widow, Ruth, before her move to Colorado in 2000.
All photos have been added by me and are from the personal albums of Althea Gray, unless otherwise stated.
Clippings and additional visuals have also been added by me, with added source material.
Ralph Taylor was born on January 13, 1910 in Chester,
Sanpete, Utah. He was the 9th
child in a family of 12 siblings.
He was a quiet and reserved individual.
Ralph (about 1940) went to Barber School in Colorado. This is where he met his wife, Ruth Eva
Nichols. She had been married
before and had a daughter about 5 years old named Pat. Pat told her mother after they were
married that Ralph had never been married before because he didn’t know how to
talk to children. Ralph and Ruth
went to Barber School together, and after they were married, they went to live
in Salt Lake City.
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| SOURCE: Vernal Express 1936, May 28, p.4 |
As Ruth tells it, Ralph was quite a cracker jack (whatever
that means). She says there was
nothing she would have ever changed about Ralph, that he was a gorgeous
man. Ralph was always admired by
his fellowmen. Ruth tells it that
she was bossy, and he always kind of liked that. He would always ask her what she wanted to do about
something, and they could decide together what to do.
Anything I wanted I got and anything I wanted him to do he
did and he would like me to go fishing with him and things like that. We would make a lunch and go up in the
canyon, we would take Pat and we would go do different things. Ralph loved to go fishing. Ralph also had a beautiful voice and
could really sing.
Ralph and Ruth worked up at Ft. Douglas cutting the hair for
the enlistees. Ruth ran the beauty
shops, and Ralph ran the barber shops.
We were just like we were at home, we were right together all the
time. At night he would help me
clean up my shop, and I would help him clean up his shop.
We had been married quite awhile before he went into the
service. In April 1944, my niece
and I, her husband was in the service and mine was too, flew to California and
spent the weekend with them. Ralph
took me over to the island, Catalina and showed me the things over there and we
just had a wonderful time.
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| Ralph Taylor's military card SOURCE: ancestry.com (see source info on image for more details) |
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| 1940s postcard image borrowed from www.hometownarchive.com |
While Ralph was in the service, Ruth bought the house where
she still now resides [as of this writing]. Ralph was released and came home and told Ruth that they
couldn’t afford a house or a car until he got a job. Ruth had bought the house and care and they were all paid
for. She also told him that she
had a job all lined up for him. He
then went back to Fort Douglas where he had worked before he went into the
service.
Thea Taylor, Ralph’s niece, had come to live in Salt
Lake. Thea in the meantime had met
Jess [Gray] and she could not find a home to live, so I said where our house is
big down here so just move down in with us. As soon as Thea and Jess located a home in which they would
live, they moved out. Thea and
Jess would come down to visit Ralph and Ruth every Sunday and have dinner with
them. Sometimes Jess (Thea’s
husband) and Ralph would go out and [do] things in the yard but Thea and Ruth
would always talk a lot. Ruth and
Thea became as “thick as thieves”.
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| Ralph and Ruth outside their home |
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| Ralph, Ruth, Bob's wife, Bob (good friend?), Althea kneeling Outside their Holladay home |
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| Ralph and Ruth's yard- wow. |
Next to our house, Ralph and Ruth had a little orchard
planted. Ralph wanted to take out
some trees that were in the orchard.
So on July 8, 1950 they took to the orchard to do this project. They always worked together and loved
it. They were out in the orchard
and some of the neighborhood boys, 2 of them lived right next door, came and said
they were thinking of going fishing.
It was the opening day of fishing and Ralph said he would love to go
with them as he really enjoyed fishing.
He was undecided as he wanted to get the trees finished and
everything. Ruth told him that
they could do that later, and to go ahead and go with the guys fishing. They left the next morning and while he
was gone one of Ruth’s nieces from Colorado came in and she was doing her
hair. Ruth had baked a cake and
was hurrying around because he was due home at any time. She was almost finished with her niece
when she saw the car coming back up the street. She said “Here comes my fisherman”, and set everything down
and ran out to meet them. Ruth
could see Ralph lying in the back—seat.
She told the other guys that if he couldn’t stay awake until he got
home, that they would have to find another fishing mate. She was just joking, when Neal (one of
the guys) came up to me and put his arms around me and said, “Ruth, a terrible
thing has happened.” Ruth asked
him [what] was the matter and he said that Ralph was dead. Ruth would not believe him. She sent the guy for a doctor and told
the other one to help her get him into bed. She told them that he was alright and didn’t believe them.
The story went that Ralph was fishing and got his hook
caught on the branch of a tree. He
climbed up the tree to get his hook out when he fell out of the tree. He was alive on the way to Salt Lake,
and they wanted to take him to the hospital. He told [them] No, that he wanted to get home and he’d be
okay. On the edge of town they
told him they wanted to stop and call Ruth. He told them no, that Ruth would know just what to do when
he got home. Before they got him
home, however, he died. They
figured that he had had a heart attack and died. They Taylors were all known for their bad hearts.
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| Cropped from a larger photo from the personal albums of Gene Nyberg. |
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