Anna Marie Taylor

Anna Marie, known to most as “Annie”, was born November 24, 1930, the third child of Benjamin Franklin and Franciska Helena (Erbe) Prescott. She was born at home in Oklahoma City. Home was the big, white, rambling Victorian style house on the corner of NW 15th street, where she lived most of her life, eventually raising her own children there.

Annie’s father, Benjamin, a Polish immigrant, was a brick mason by trade. He was active in the Freemason society, achieving 32nd level Mason. Her mother, Helen, was an accomplished pianist and home-maker.

Annie joined older sister, Helen and brother, Bob (who she called Prescott). Four years later, her sister, Katherine completed the family. Annie was always close to her siblings, all of whom predeceased her, as well as one grandchild, Chaunte Taylor.

Annie loved animals and from childhood was an active collector of a menagerie of parakeets, canaries, dogs, cats, rabbits and all of God’s creatures, a trait that would later delight her children and grand-children.

Annie attended Eugene Field’s Elementary School, just across the street from her home. She graduated from Central High School, in Oklahoma City, in 1949.

A hallmark personality trait of Annie’s was her stubbornness, passed down to her by her mother. When Annie was 18 and her sister, Kate was 14, the Central Presbyterian church they attended moved across town and sold their building to the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. Unwillingly to leave the church they’d attended all their lives, Annie and Kate accepted the Seventh-Day Adventist message and were baptized. Annie continued to be a faithful member of the Seventh-Day Adventist church for over 60 years, often helping out in the children’s division and with potluck. She loved nothing more than a good hymn sing-along, and she knew all the words by heart.

Annie met her husband, Ray Donald Taylor, at a church social and they were married a year later on June 25, 1950. They were attended by bridesmaids and groomsmen in rainbow array of pastel dresses and tuxes. Ray, retired from Tinker Air Force Base, passed away in 1998. They would have been married 60 years, this past summer. One of the special musical selections at their service was the song “I Love You Truly.” My daughter, Francie, who is getting married this weekend, chose the same piece to be sung at her reception, in honor of her Grandma Annie.

Annie and Ray had two children: a daughter, Cecelia Ann, in 1954, and four years later, a son, Ray Donald, Jr., who they called Donnie. Annie spoiled and doted on us both.

Always aiming to please him, when Annie was taken to the delivery room, just before the birth of her first child, she asked Ray what he would like. He playfully requested a blue-eyed, blonde little girl and Annie delivered. She had planned to name me Elizabeth Ann, but when she was visited in the hospital by her pregnant sister, Helen, she decided she liked her sister’s chosen girl name better, naming her newborn daughter Cecelia Ann instead. Helen (who also inherited the stubborn streak) fortunately forgave her, but not until several months later, after she delivered her own child – a boy, our cousin, Tony.

The year after Annie and Ray were married, Annie’s widowed mother, Helen, married Ray’s divorced father, Orville Taylor. The two couples shared the big two-story house on NW 15th street, which became the gathering place, central to many happy childhood memories, for all the nieces and nephews. Donnie and I were always surrounded by cousins as playmates. Annie enjoyed her role as homemaker, and was happy to shuttle her children, nieces and nephews around to various programs and events.

As a young woman, Annie loved to play volleyball at church socials. At home, she loved to play games, often involving mischief or practical jokes. She often entertained her children and nieces and nephews with games they played outside in her yard. One such game was called “refrigerator”, and was similar to hide and seek. During one particularly memorable game of refrigerator, Annie disappeared and no one could find her. Eventually the game dissolved and everyone went on to other activities, until a lone voice was heard calling from high up in the big tree. It was Annie, “Can someone come help me get down from here?!”

She was a terrible house-keeper, but a fantastic cook. Always meaning to get organized, but never quite succeeding, she preferred to focus her talents elsewhere. When her children were little, she enjoyed being the home-room mother. Making and delivering special treats to the classroom, was something she especially enjoyed. She poured her creativity into it - store-bought was unacceptable! Christmas and Valentine’s Day were givens, of course, but Annie was always looking for an excuse to spoil her children, and later her grand-children. One of her infamously well executed ideas was to make cupcakes, frosted to look like little logs, trimmed with a plastic ax and a maraschino cherry for President’s Day.

Annie loved to lavish Donnie and I with gifts at Christmas time. Unfortunately, she was also a procrastinator, often waiting to shop until Christmas eve and then staying up all night wrapping. As kids, we were never the wiser, always awaking to an impressive, festively wrapped spread, greeting us Christmas morning.

When Donnie and I were grown, she worked part-time at Irene’s bakery. She loved the interaction with regular customers and delighted in the chance to show off her grandchildren when they stopped by the store, always managing to produce a “free” gingerbread man for each child.

Annie was always doing something for others. She enjoyed crocheting and crafting. There are many generations of babies who have gone to sleep snuggled in a receiving blanket loving trimmed with lace crocheted by Grandma or Aunt Annie.

She loved being a grandmother. Her grand-children were her special pride and joy. When my children were small, she was my life-line: pitching in to watch the kids, cook and do laundry. The grand-children all knew Grandma Annie’s phone number by heart, from the time they could pick up a phone and dial. No emergency was too minor for Grandma Annie to swoop in and rescue. She also had the absolute best house for hide-and-seek and treasure hunting. The kids were always begging Grandma to come pick them up and take them to her house to play. Later, when Donnie had children, she did the same for them. Most recently, she loved to tell anyone and everyone who would listen, what a smart boy and a good honor-roll student her grandson Robert was.

Though she didn’t get to see them often, her playful, fun-loving, ornery nature endeared Grandma Annie to her great-grandchildren instantly. After a visit to Oklahoma 3 summers ago, my daughter’s daughter, Katya, called her dad to report, “Dad! You should see my little grandma. She’s SO CUTE. She’s so short, she looks like a teen-ager!” Grandma Annie easily saw the humor in that statement, and was delighted to be the “little grandma”, proclaiming Katya “my kind of girl!”

During that same trip, just 3 summers ago, Grandma Annie was coaxed by her grandchildren and great-grandchildren to visit Frontier City. Reluctant at first, by the end of the day, she got soaked going down the log ride and took it all in stride. When it was time to leave, she asked if she could first “try those little car things”. She wanted to go on the bumper cars, and she did!

Annie spent much of her life caring for her parents in the same house she grew up in. She was a loving and devoted daughter. She remained in that big, rambling house after first her parents, and then eventually her husband, passed away. But eventually, it proved to be too much for her to manage, so she moved down the street into the house with her son Don and his wife, Velay, and grandson, Robert. She was an Oklahoma girl through and through, refusing to stray far from her familiar home base. I often tried to convince her to move to New York and my daughters asked her to visit or move to Michigan, promising to spoil and pamper her, but she refused steadfastly, often stating, “they have houses and jobs in Oklahoma too, you know!”

But she refused to slow down, remaining active and fiercely independent until her health deteriorated just recently.

In May of 2009, she was out running errands, when the car she was driving was broad-sided after pulling out from the bank drive-through window. Her daughter-in-law, Velay, was in the car with her, but not seriously hurt. Annie, however, was unconscious at the scene. She was rushed to the emergency room with serious, life-threatening bleeding into her brain. She fought fiercely for her life in the ICU and battled her way through rehab to home. While in the hospital, her playful spirit managed to shine through, and she endeared herself as the favorite patient to all the staff- despite “pinching” nurses who worked tried to make her do things she didn’t want to. But ultimately her injuries proved too serious to make a full recovery and her health continued to decline at home. This past year, she reluctantly agreed to move into the Summit Ridge Living Center in Harrah, Oklahoma. There, her health continued to decline, and on Friday, October the 1st, she went to sleep for one last time.

Survivors include her children, Ray D. Taylor, Jr. and wife Phatumvelay, Cecelia Hess and husband Bob; grandchildren, Eddie and Robert Taylor, Rachael Proctor & husband Derrick, Ryan Crittenden & wife Lisa, Shannon Blake, Lori Costanza & husband Todd, Francie Bakken and fiancé Jason Reentz, Natalie Woolf and husband Adam; great-grandchildren, Kristen, Katya, Jack and Ben Proctor, Ryan Jr., Matthew, Hannah and Grace Crittenden, Madeline Blake, Tony and Bella Costanza, Mason Woolf.

A funeral service will be held at 2:00 p.m., Wednesday, October 6, 2010 at the Bill Eisenhour Northeast Chapel. Interment will follow at Rose Hill Burial Park.