Walter Edwin Taylor

Our wonderful husband, father, grandfather, brother, friend and mentor Walter Edwin Taylor departed this life on Sunday, November 17, at his home in Oceanside, California, after a fearless and courageous battle with cancer. He was 79.

Walter was born on December 5, 1933, in Cincinnati, Ohio, the first of five children of Martin R. Taylor and Ethel M. (Kiefer) Taylor.

He attended elementary and high school in the Cincinnati suburb of Deer Park. He later attended the University of Cincinnati evening college while employed in the Cincinnati office of the H.J. Heinz Company as a stock clerk and sales facilitator.

In 1952, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and served in Korea with the 440th Signal Aviation Construction Battalion, which was based in and near Seoul.

Following military service, he resumed college studies, first at Santa Ana College and then San Jose State College (now University), where he earned a B.A. Degree with honors in journalism in 1957.

Upon graduation from college, he began a seven-year stint at the Daily Review in Hayward, California, where he worked at various times as a copy editor, news editor and reporter/photographer. He was the paper’s first news editor of its Sunday edition.

In 1959, he married Dona Mae Albright of Hayward. They had three children, all of whom survive: Stanley (Laurie) of Lake Mathews, California, Michael (Rebecca) of Round Rock, Texas, and Jennifer Niemela of Lake Forest, California.

In 1964, he was hired by the Los Angeles Times as a copy editor in the paper’s Suburban Sections Department. He enjoyed a 30-year career at The Times, during which he held a variety of positions, including those of editor of the San Gabriel Valley section, start-up editor of the Southeast section, start-up news editor of the San Diego County Edition, and, in Los Angeles, Metro news editor and Metro copy editor.

He and Dona divorced in the late 1970s. In 1982, he married Merle Martin Harpe of Chicago, who was by this time a colleague at The Times.

Walter and Merle resided in the South Bay area of Los Angeles County and were members of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in San Pedro, where they served as lay Eucharistic ministers.

After retiring to Oceanside, California, in 1994, Walter joined the Vista Bridge Club, where he earned a few master points, before turning to volunteerism as an ESL instructor. He conducted morning ESL classes for eight years in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Oceanside. In 2001, he began a long tenure as a volunteer tutor in the Oceanside Public Library’s literacy program. He was also a dedicated blood donor over several decades in Los Angeles and San Diego counties.

His interests over the years, in addition to bridge, have included chess, travel, photography, literature, baseball, films, and occasional efforts as an amateur caricaturist and watercolor artist. He was a talented, kind, caring and generous man, much loved by family and friends, who deeply mourn his loss.

Survivors, besides his children, include his wife Merle; brother Kenneth of Clarkston, Washington, sister Susan Fleck of Florida, four grandchildren, former wife Dona and her husband, Jim Hartleib. He is predeceased by brothers Jack and Timothy as well as by his parents.

Services will be held at 10 a.m. on Saturday, November 30, at Eternal Hills Memorial Park in Oceanside. In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts to a charity of the donor’s choice or to the Friends of the Oceanside Library would be most welcome.