Courtlan Marion Taylor

Written by daughter Nova Jean Taylor.

Courtlan Marion Taylor, son of William Triplet (Trip) Taylor and Ellavissa (Elly) Elizabeth Sanderful, was born July 22, 1890, the only child.

He grew up on a small farm, but never liked farming. His world was books. After he finished "normal" school, (grade school to us), he went to Hartford, KY for further schooling, coming home on weekends and summers to the farm. He took teacher's training at Ohio County Teacher's College in Hartford. KY.

He taught school for several years in Ohio County, there meeting his future wife, Ida Olive Gordon, one of his students. He also loved music, and taught classes in "shape note" singing. He had a beautiful tenor voice and loved to attend Singing Conventions all over the state well into his old age.

For the first few years of Courtlan's and Olive's marriage, they lived with his parents. They then bought a 250 acre farm in the Bald Knob community, (near Cromwell), and farmed there for 12-15 years. He bought his first farm himself, and the second. He did get the "Old Place" when his Dad died though. It was the smallest of the 3 farms. his two sons, Darrell and Oswald being born on the farm in Bald Knob

Sometime around 1925, the family moved to East Chicago, In., where Courtlan was employed by Standard Oil Company to build a large refinery complex. The farm in Kentucky was rented out, (meanwhile, Courtland had inherited the old family farm (120 acres) from his father.

Courtlan worked in Indiana during the "boom" times, just before the depression and the family became very well off, having a large house and servants. Olive started nurses training in 1928, something she had always wanted to do. After the first year, she became pregnant and was forced to quit school. She had a daughter, Nova Jean.

When the depression hit the Chicago area, the first bank to close in East Chicago took every thing the Taylor's had saved, plus all their investments became worthless. Standard Oil closed the plant, which was nearing completion and the Taylors were left with nothing except the farms in KY.
In 1932, they moved to Beaver Dam, KY, into a rented house. The 2 farms provided for them until 1934, when Courtland became supervisor for the WPA projects in that part of the state. He worked on schools, roads and other state projects. About 1937-38, Courtlan was employed to supervise the building of the Rockport Bridge over Green River, and from then until his retirement, he was in building, prisons, waste disposal plants, state parks, etc.

After he retired, he worked with his son, Darrell, in his Radio-TV Repair shop and built test boards for General Electric Corp.