Jean Sharley Taylor

Jean Sharley Taylor Lescoe, 91, died peacefully on Saturday morning, Oct. 10, 2015 in Yorba Linda, CA, attended by her son and daughter-in-law, John and Kathy, and her faithful caregivers, Elizabeth and Linda. Jean was born in Detroit on Flag Day, June 14, in 1924, the younger child of Frank and Lily Angus Sharley, who were born in London and Lancastershire, respectively, and met and married in Detroit. She attended Redford Union High School and at 17 went to work at the J.L. Hudson Co., first as a runner and then a copywriter. She began her work in professional journalism in the early 1950s as a fashion writer and general assignment reporter for the Detroit Free Press. She was the first woman to have a permanent desk in the Free Press city room. She covered Queen Elizabeth's 1959 Canadian Tour and the aftermath of the 1965 murder of civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo. Covering a Tigers-Yankees playoff game in 1961, she was barred from the Yankee Stadium press box because she was a woman. She put her Olivetti typewriter on top of an overturned trashcan, found a chair, and made her deadline. This 1964 photo by Free Press photographer Jerry Heiman shows Jean behaving gamely on one of her hundreds of feature assignments. From 1967-71, she was women's and then associate editor of the Arizona Republic. She filed a series of articles from Israel after the Six-Day War in 1967 and was the only journalist present at the 1970 wedding of Svetlana Alliluyeva, daughter of Joseph Stalin, to architect William Wesley Peters at Taliesin West in Scottsdale, AZ. She worked at the Los Angeles Times from 1971 until her retirement in 1989, first as women's editor, then editor of the "View" section. Named associate editor in 1975, she oversaw the feature, entertainment, and real estate sections and founded the book review, daily "Calendar," and "Los Angeles Times Magazine." During her years as editor, the paper won three Pulitzer Prizes for arts coverage. She oversaw creation of the paper's computerized literacy lab and championed distance learning as a member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors' literacy committee. She served for many years on the board of the non-profit PUENTE Learning Center in Los Angeles. A lifelong member of The Episcopal Church, Jean kept busy at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Detroit, where she edited the diocesan newspaper, and All Saints Church in Pasadena, where she served on the vestry and spearheaded the establishment of the parish columbarium. Jean was married first to fellow Detroit journalist Harvey Hileman Taylor, a marriage which ended in divorce, and then to Los Angeles thoracic surgeon Richard John Lescoe. Jean was proudest of her unstinting care for others, especially her son and step-grandchildren, aging parents, and husband Dick as he grappled with the effects of Parkinson's disease. Jean is survived by her son, John Harvey Taylor, and devoted daughter-in-law Kathleen Hannigan O'Connor; granddaughters Valerie Taylor Passarella and Lindsay Ann Taylor; stepdaughters Donna Lee Lescoe, Linda Lescoe, and Debbie Lescoe-Kaufman; step-grandchildren Stephanie Lescoe-Hall and Ricky Lescoe; and nephew Larry Sharley and niece Susan Sharley, the children of her late brother, George. A celebration of Jean's life will take place on Saturday, April 16, 2016 (the eve of the Fourth Sunday of Easter) at 10:30 a.m. at All Saints Church, 132 N. Euclid Ave., Pasadena, CA 91101. Contributions in thanksgiving for her life may be made to the Rector's discretionary account at All Saints.