Alice Louise Taylor

Louise Taylor began a new chapter of life on January 20, 2015. Louise was born in Cove Creek, N.C. to Charles and Sarah Alice Johnson Lewis on July 16, 1925 and grew up in Watauga County. From her early childhood, she enjoyed the love of her eight older brothers and sisters, Wiley, Jean, Blanche, Clara, Bess, Robert, Carl, and Ernest. This closeness sustained the family through the Depression and the death of Sarah when Louise was four. The family grew when Charles later married Hattie Swift Johnson, a local teacher, who had two daughters from a previous marriage.

As a young woman, Louise left the North Carolina mountains and traveled across the country working at diverse jobs ranging from nanny to airplane mechanic. When she returned to N.C., she began working at then-Appalachian State Teachers College. There she met James Taylor, Jr., a young lawyer in private practice in Boone. They married in 1952. Jim joined the Air Force and over the next three decades they traveled together to England, Nebraska, Hawaii, the Philippines, and to Washington, D.C. for multiple tours. On retirement from the military, they settled in their native North Carolina, enjoying the company of old and new friends and becoming a part of the Wake Forest University community and their wonderful neighborhood. They had one child and enjoyed 49 years of marriage. Louise cherished all of the people she met on her journey.

Louise’s daughter, son-in-law, sisters-in-law, nieces, nephews and their families carry her memory forward. To steadfast friends, family, and, more recently, medical professionals, thank you for contributing to many happy years. A service of celebration will be held at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, February 7 at Wait Chapel on the Wake Forest University campus. She will be laid to rest beside her husband at Arlington National Cemetery at a later date.

Donations in remembrance of Louise may be directed to The Salvation Army, Post Office Box 1205, Winston-Salem, NC 27102-1205.