| Name |
BAKER, Honorah Cross |
| Birth |
5 Apr 1864 |
Russellville, [KY], Logan County, Kentucky  [1] |
| Gender |
Female |
| Religion |
Between 1898 and 1935 |
Christian Church, Lexington, Fayette, Kentucky [2] |
| Church affiliation: Christian Church. Norah (Baker) Taylor |
| Anecdotes |
Between 1920 and 1955 |
Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky [3, 4] |
- My mother, Ruth (Taylor) Erd wrote about her aunt, my great
aunt, Honorah (Baker) Taylor:
"I wish everyone could have known Aunt Norah. I lived
with Aunt Norah and Uncle John while I was attending the
University of Kentucky in Lexington. It was a wonderful
experience and I am so glad I had the chance of really knowing
her.
"Aunt Norah was about sixty when I first remember her.
She was a dignified and stately woman with beautiful long white
hair which she piled high on her head. One of her greatest
charms was her intense interest in everyone she met, and she
had a way of drawing out the most reserved person. She played
the pipe organ at Central Christian Church for thirty-five
years, while her husband served as Deacon, Elder, and held
other honorary positions in the church.
"Aunt Norah was the secretary of the Kentucky W.C.T.U. and
an ardent worker for the Republican Party. One of the most
efficient woman I ever knew, she had a way of sounding helpless
when she wanted any assistance and, of course, she always got
it. I remember hearing her call the grocery (groceries were
delivered then) and saying, 'What shall I have for dinner
tonight, Mr. Rue?' He would then suggest a number of things
and she would finally pick out something that pleased her. He
would tell her the amount she needed for the number of people
coming to dinner - and it was done. Another time the sewer in
the street was overflowing after a heavy storm. She got busy
on the telephone and went from one department of the city to
another with the most helpless voice, and within a very short
time there were men out there working on the sewer.
"She played a good deal on her age. When anyone would
say, 'Mrs. Taylor, when you drive you MUST stop at the arterial
highways.' Her reply was, 'Oh, when they see me coming with my
white hair they always stop for ME.' And she trusted to this
most of the time. Her car was a 1922 Chrysler and was finally
bought as an antique. They had added awnings to the windows on
the sides that added to its quaint appearance. The shift was
hard to work and she didn't like to stop unless it was
absolutely necessary. She never hesitated to go the wrong way
on a one-way street, and surprisingly she never had an accident
while doing so. However, she once failed to stop at an
arterial highway and collided with a car driven by a University
student. When he came to collect damages on his car, she told
him that she thought he should pay her for damages on hers,
because they wouldn't have had the collision if he hadn't been
going so fast. He soon saw it was useless so proposed that
they each take care of their own damages.
"Another time she was driving me on a search for a house,
and we came to a corner where five streets met. On one was a
street car, another had an old Negro on a 'spring wagon' with a
mule, and the interurban on the third. Aunt Norah stuck her
head out of the window of her car and yelled, 'Just a minute,
everyone,' and waved her hand frantically. 'Whoa--' said the
Negor, pulling on his reins - and the street car and the
interurban conductors stopped to see what in the world the
trouble was. Then Aunt Norah made a wide 'U' turn in the
street, waved a 'thank you' to the three and drove on.
"When I was waiting for the birth of my second son she
drove me to the bank to make a deposit. She double-parked
while I waited in a line for service. When I came out she was
still there waiting for me. She told me that the policeman
directing traffic on the corner behind her had motioned her to
go on - blew his whistle and kept motioning. She sat. He
finally walked up and said, 'Lady, you can't park there.
Double-parking is illegal.' 'I know that,' she replied, 'but
my niece is in the bank and she's pregnant and I'm not going to
have her walking a block to the car. I'll sit right here until
she comes out.' He shook his head and walked back to the
corner; still feeling guilty about allowing her to get be with
it, he occasionally blew his whistle and perfunctorily motioned
her on.
"Uncle John was part owner of a department store and Aunt
Norah would go for him in the evenings to bring him home. One
time she got there early, double-parked, and went in the store
to buy something. When she came out the car had been towed
away. 'I knew just where it would be,' she told us, 'so I went
to the police station right away and sure enough they had it.'
The policeman said, 'Mrs. Taylor, you know it is illegal to
double-park.' 'Of course I do, so you know I was in a hurry or
I would never have done it. And I am a busy woman and don't
have time to play games with you policeman and I'll thank you
to keep your hands off my car in the future. Any time you see
it double-parked you will know I didn't have time to look for a
parking place.' And with that she took her car, paid no fine,
and went home.
"From the above it may seem that she was a sharp-tongued
person, but that isn't true. She had a laugh in her voice when
she said all of these things, and everyone adored her. She
loved young people, and there were always some there at the
house for a visit. She was always helping people and her house
was filled with hospitality. I remember singing with Aunt
Norah playing the piano. She loved best a piece about a fire,
which she played with such violence (probably from playing the
organ), and you could practically hear the horses and wagons
coming to put out the fire.
"Everything in the house had to be neat and clean. I
remember once when I was going to put some butter on the table,
she said I would have to change the dish because it wasn't neat
enough. I surely learned a lot living with her! Breakfast was
the meal I liked best. Many mornings we would have bacon,
sliced fried apples and corn bread. One of my favorite things
in the spring would be hot sassafras tea, dark pink and
fragrant. She was a delicious cook - some of her specialties
were homemade rolls and corn bread. White bread was called
'light-bread' by the Southerners, and I was in high school in
the North before I realized that other people didn't know what
I meant by it. She said coffee is not hot unless I can see it
bubbling when it comes to the table.
"One hot night in the summer we were sitting out on the
porch watching the fireflies dancing over the lawn and fanning
ourselves with large palm-leaf fans. Aunt Norah suddenly took
off her shoes and stocking and walked out in the dewy grass and
said, 'Oh, this is so good - I could just walk around out here
all night.' It wouldn't have made such an impression on me had
she not been such a dignified woman.
"Years later when the children had all grown up, and Dick
and I were living in Dayton, Aunt Norah came up to visit us. I
took her to a meeting of a drama group of the College Women's
Club. She saw a small electric organ sitting there and much to
my embarrassment asked the hostess if she minded if she played
it. Of course, all the women were charmed and enjoyed the
music!"
-----------------------------------------------
Well, it seems that when Mom wrote these notes about Aunt Norah
she had forgotten a few details here and there. First as to
that wonderful 1922 Chrysler, it was not sold as an antique.
It certainly deserved to be, but the truth is that Aunt Norah,
then a widow, and some time between 1945 and the time of her
death in 1955, sold it to a farmer for a ridiculously low price
- possibly a $100 dollars. And he was not really interested in
the car, but rather he wanted the engine to put in his tractor.
The car had a personality. John and Norah named it Betty
Jane, and it carried them faithfully through the years and
through the county. I could not drive it. There was a
confusion of small hand-levers jutting out from the right side
of the steering wheel, and these were used along with the foot
pedals to shift the gears, adjust the choke, and so on. It is
not surprising therefore that once Aunt Norah had it in motion
she did not wish to stop.
I went down to visit down for a bit of an extended visit
with Aunt Norah in the summer prior to my senior year in high
school and Aunt Norah and Betty Jane showed me Lexington,
Kentucky. What Mom wrote was true. It was still happening.
We reached that circle where five streets come together. And
again there was traffic coming from all directions, even
another horse-drawn wagon, but the street car and interurban
were no more. Without written instructions everyone knew the
correct procedural conduct for such an intersection - each
vehicle entered the circle only when it was first in line by
arrival time. But Aunt Norah rolled down her window and
yelled, "STOP EVERYBODY!" I couldn't believe it. They all
did. And Betty Jane went putt-putting around that circle in
front of all those other vehicles and left by the same road she
came in.
Mom did mention the pull-down curtains on the side
windows, each with a short tassel complete with a ball of
fluffy yarn at the end. But she neglected to mention the
vases. Yes, there were built in vases on the panels between
the windows and the door where one could put fresh cut flowers
during an outing.
Aunt Norah truly scared me with her driving, and with good
reason. One morning I went with her in Betty Jane to pick up
her laundry. The laundry establishment was in a small one-way
alley, and Norah Taylor was driving in the proper direction.
Nothing was amiss until we had the laundry safely in Betty
Jane. That was a blind alley which opened directly onto
highway 75, the highly traveled route from Cincinnati to
Lexington.
Certainly it was not due to the lack of a stop sign as
there was one there. And a driver could, when stopped at the
sign, see the oncoming highway traffic. But stop signs were of
no consequence to Aunt Norah. She pulled out into the highway
and made her right turn. My nervousness related to an oncoming
semi-tractor-trailer, an eighteen wheeler, a huge truck coming
with speed of consequence, again of no consequence to my Aunt.
I heard the air brakes go on, the tires screaming, and looking
to the side I saw the truck passing us, out of control, his
trailer fish-tailing wildly on either side of his lane. The
blast on the air horn prompted Aunt Norah to remark, "Mercy,
the way people drive nowadays."
When Uncle John was still with us it was little comfort if
he was doing the driving. One time he took me around to show
me the campus of the University of Kentucky. "Now over there
is the Engineering School where you daddy went to school, " he
said pointing with the finger on his left hand while his right
turned the steering wheel in the same direction and we went
merrily into the oncoming lane precipitating honking by the
oncoming drivers.
The incident Mom spoke of relating to Aunt Norah's car
being towed when she double-parked may have been a replay of an
earlier episode, but I think Mom simply forgot all of the
details. The police station was right next to the department
store where Uncle John worked. When Aunt Norah came out and
found her car gone she dashed immediately into the police
station and told the policeman at the desk that her car had
been stolen. The Sargeant said, "Now calm down, Mrs. Taylor.
Your car has not been stolen. It is in our parking lot behind
the station. You were double-parked." Aunt Norah replied,
"Young man, you should have known if my car was double-parked I
was in a hurry. I was picking up my husband. Now I don't have
time to play games with you. Give me my car so I can take my
husband home and give him his dinner." "Yes, Mrs. Taylor."
Like all growing cities Lexington found it necessary to
convert some streets to one-way traffic. Aunt Norah was on one
of these streets heading north, but the street was marked for
one-way traffic in the other direction. The policeman stepped
in front of her car and raised his hand. She stopped. "Mrs.
Taylor, this is a one-way street and you are going in the wrong
direction." "Young man, I was driving on this street before
you were born, and I always go in this direction." "Yes,
Ma'am, I know that but this street has been one-way for the
last ten years and I have been watching you go the wrong way
and I just can't stand it any more." Mrs. Taylor said no more
and ceased driving in the wrong direction on that particular
street. That message, however, did not apply apparently to the
other one-way streets in Lexington.
At the time of my visit Aunt Norah was eighty years of
age. She played match-maker for her young Yankee great nephew,
and arranged for me to spend time with young girls of my age
for an afternoon. It turned out that they were all distant
cousins of mine one way or another, but I had no idea as to
what the relationships might have been. Certainly the
euphemism of "kissing cousins" would apply, but that did not
mean that I was free to kiss any of them I chose.
My first appointment that afternoon was with three of
these sweet southern belles all at one time. I found that in
spite of my Yankee accent, or possibly because of it, that they
found me interesting and the time flew until they announced
they had to leave. I went back to see Aunt Norah and found I
was in trouble. "Where have you been, young man?" I couldn't
imagine what I had done wrong and only then did I discover that
Aunt Norah had arranged for a series of meeting with a number
of other distant cousins. Any southern-born boy would have
known that no more than an hour could be spent on one of these
adventures and then it was time to return to home base. I had
just confirmed to all that I was just a gauche, gawky, ungainly
and unmannerly Yankee.
There is so much more that could be written about this
wonderful lady. An example would be the time she hosted a
meeting of the W.C.T.U. in her parlor. In the middle of the
meeting she said, "Excuse me for a moment," and disappeared
upstairs. I learned that it was because she was tired and
wanted to take a nap. In something just under a half hour she
returned saying, "I feel much better now." I asked her about
this and she said, "Oh, I knew everything they were going to
say. I've heard it all before."
Yes, there are so many things one could write about Aunt
Norah. Unfortunately the primary function here is the
compilation of our family genealogy.
16 Jul 03 QLE
|
| Name |
Norah Cross Baker [1] |
| _UID |
2EB35FEAAA2D3147A79895459B94DE5CFB38 |
| Death |
30 Apr 1955 |
Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky [1] |
- My mother, Ruth (Taylor) Erd wrote about her aunt, my great aunt, Honorah (Baker) Taylor:
"I wish everyone could have known Aunt Norah. I lived with Aunt Norah and Uncle John while I was attending the University of Kentucky in Lexington. It was a wonderful experience and I am so glad I had the chance of really knowing her. "Aunt Norah was about sixty when I first remember her.
She was a dignified and stately woman with beautiful long white hair which she piled high on her head. One of her greatest charms was her intense interest in everyone she met, and she had a way of drawing out the most reserved person. She played the pipe organ at Central Christian Church for thirty-five years, while her husband served as Deacon, Elder, and held other honorary positions in the church. "Aunt Norah was the secretary of the Kentucky W.C.T.U. and an ardent worker for the Republican Party. One of the most efficient woman I ever knew, she had a way of sounding helpless when she wanted any assistance and, of course, she always got it. I remember hearing her call the grocery (groceries were delivered then) and saying, 'What shall I have for dinner tonight, Mr. Rue?' He would then suggest a number of things and she would finally pick out something that pleased her. He would tell her the amount she needed for the number of people coming to dinner - and it was done. Another time the sewer in the street was overflowing after a heavy storm. She got busy on the telephone and went from one department of the city to another with the most helpless voice, and within a very short time there were men out there working on the sewer.
"She played a good deal on her age. When anyone would say, 'Mrs. Taylor, when you drive you MUST stop at the arterial highways.' Her reply was, 'Oh, when they see me coming with my white hair they always stop for ME.' And she trusted to this most of the time. Her car was a 1922 Chrysler and was finally bought as an antique. They had added awnings to the windows on the sides that added to its quaint appearance. The shift was hard to work and she didn't like to stop unless it was absolutely necessary. She never hesitated to go the wrong way on a one-way street, and surprisingly she never had an accident while doing so. However, she once failed to stop at an arterial highway and collided with a car driven by a University student. When he came to collect damages on his car, she told him that she thought he should pay her for damages on hers, because they wouldn't have had the collision if he hadn't been going so fast. He soon saw it was useless so proposed that they each take care of their own damages.
"Another time she was driving me on a search for a house, and we came to a corner where five streets met. On one was a street car, another had an old Negro on a 'spring wagon' with a mule, and the interurban on the third. Aunt Norah stuck her head out of the window of her car and yelled, 'Just a minute, everyone,' and waved her hand frantically. 'Whoa--' said the Negor, pulling on his reins - and the street car and the interurban conductors stopped to see what in the world the trouble was. Then Aunt Norah made a wide 'U' turn in the street, waved a 'thank you' to the three and drove on.
"When I was waiting for the birth of my second son she drove me to the bank to make a deposit. She double-parked while I waited in a line for service. When I came out she was still there waiting for me. She told me that the policeman directing traffic on the corner behind her had motioned her to go on - blew his whistle and kept motioning. She sat. He finally walked up and said, 'Lady, you can't park there. Double-parking is illegal.' 'I know that,' she replied, 'but my niece is in the bank and she's pregnant and I'm not going to have her walking a block to the car. I'll sit right here until she comes out.' He shook his head and walked back to the corner; still feeling guilty about allowing her to get be with it, he occasionally blew his whistle and perfunctorily motioned her on.
"Uncle John was part owner of a department store and Aunt Norah would go for him in the evenings to bring him home. One time she got there early, double-parked, and went in the store to buy something. When she came out the car had been towed away. 'I knew just where it would be,' she told us, 'so I went to the police station right away and sure enough they had it.' The policeman said, 'Mrs. Taylor, you know it is illegal to double-park.' 'Of course I do, so you know I was in a hurry or I would never have done it. And I am a busy woman and don't have time to play games with you policeman and I'll thank you to keep your hands off my car in the future. Any time you see it double-parked you will know I didn't have time to look for a parking place.' And with that she took her car, paid no fine, and went home.
"From the above it may seem that she was a sharp-tongued person, but that isn't true. She had a laugh in her voice when she said all of these things, and everyone adored her. She loved young people, and there were always some there at the house for a visit. She was always helping people and her house was filled with hospitality. I remember singing with Aunt Norah playing the piano. She loved best a piece about a fire, which she played with such violence (probably from playing the organ), and you could practically hear the horses and wagons coming to put out the fire.
"Everything in the house had to be neat and clean. I remember once when I was going to put some butter on the table, she said I would have to change the dish because it wasn't neat enough. I surely learned a lot living with her! Breakfast was the meal I liked best. Many mornings we would have bacon, sliced fried apples and corn bread. One of my favorite things in the spring would be hot sassafras tea, dark pink and fragrant. She was a delicious cook - some of her specialties were homemade rolls and corn bread. White bread was called 'light-bread' by the Southerners, and I was in high school in the North before I realized that other people didn't know what I meant by it. She said coffee is not hot unless I can see it bubbling when it comes to the table.
"One hot night in the summer we were sitting out on the porch watching the fireflies dancing over the lawn and fanning ourselves with large palm-leaf fans. Aunt Norah suddenly took off her shoes and stocking and walked out in the dewy grass and said, 'Oh, this is so good - I could just walk around out here all night.' It wouldn't have made such an impression on me had she not been such a dignified woman.
"Years later when the children had all grown up, and Dick and I were living in Dayton, Aunt Norah came up to visit us. I took her to a meeting of a drama group of the College Women's Club. She saw a small electric organ sitting there and much to my embarrassment asked the hostess if she minded if she played it. Of course, all the women were charmed and enjoyed the music!"
-----------------------------------------------
Well, it seems that when Mom wrote these notes about Aunt Norah
she had forgotten a few details here and there. First as to
that wonderful 1922 Chrysler, it was not sold as an antique.
It certainly deserved to be, but the truth is that Aunt Norah,
then a widow, and some time between 1945 and the time of her
death in 1955, sold it to a farmer for a ridiculously low price
- possibly a $100 dollars. And he was not really interested in
the car, but rather he wanted the engine to put in his tractor.
The car had a personality. John and Norah named it Betty
Jane, and it carried them faithfully through the years and
through the county. I could not drive it. There was a
confusion of small hand-levers jutting out from the right side
of the steering wheel, and these were used along with the foot
pedals to shift the gears, adjust the choke, and so on. It is
not surprising therefore that once Aunt Norah had it in motion
she did not wish to stop.
I went down to visit down for a bit of an extended visit
with Aunt Norah in the summer prior to my senior year in high
school and Aunt Norah and Betty Jane showed me Lexington,
Kentucky. What Mom wrote was true. It was still happening.
We reached that circle where five streets come together. And
again there was traffic coming from all directions, even
another horse-drawn wagon, but the street car and interurban
were no more. Without written instructions everyone knew the
correct procedural conduct for such an intersection - each
vehicle entered the circle only when it was first in line by
arrival time. But Aunt Norah rolled down her window and
yelled, "STOP EVERYBODY!" I couldn't believe it. They all
did. And Betty Jane went putt-putting around that circle in
front of all those other vehicles and left by the same road she
came in.
Mom did mention the pull-down curtains on the side
windows, each with a short tassel complete with a ball of
fluffy yarn at the end. But she neglected to mention the
vases. Yes, there were built in vases on the panels between
the windows and the door where one could put fresh cut flowers
during an outing.
Aunt Norah truly scared me with her driving, and with good
reason. One morning I went with her in Betty Jane to pick up
her laundry. The laundry establishment was in a small one-way
alley, and Norah Taylor was driving in the proper direction.
Nothing was amiss until we had the laundry safely in Betty
Jane. That was a blind alley which opened directly onto
highway 75, the highly traveled route from Cincinnati to
Lexington.
Certainly it was not due to the lack of a stop sign as
there was one there. And a driver could, when stopped at the
sign, see the oncoming highway traffic. But stop signs were of
no consequence to Aunt Norah. She pulled out into the highway
and made her right turn. My nervousness related to an oncoming
semi-tractor-trailer, an eighteen wheeler, a huge truck coming
with speed of consequence, again of no consequence to my Aunt.
I heard the air brakes go on, the tires screaming, and looking
to the side I saw the truck passing us, out of control, his
trailer fish-tailing wildly on either side of his lane. The
blast on the air horn prompted Aunt Norah to remark, "Mercy,
the way people drive nowadays."
When Uncle John was still with us it was little comfort if
he was doing the driving. One time he took me around to show
me the campus of the University of Kentucky. "Now over there
is the Engineering School where you daddy went to school, " he
said pointing with the finger on his left hand while his right
turned the steering wheel in the same direction and we went
merrily into the oncoming lane precipitating honking by the
oncoming drivers.
The incident Mom spoke of relating to Aunt Norah's car
being towed when she double-parked may have been a replay of an
earlier episode, but I think Mom simply forgot all of the
details. The police station was right next to the department
store where Uncle John worked. When Aunt Norah came out and
found her car gone she dashed immediately into the police
station and told the policeman at the desk that her car had
been stolen. The Sargeant said, "Now calm down, Mrs. Taylor.
Your car has not been stolen. It is in our parking lot behind
the station. You were double-parked." Aunt Norah replied,
"Young man, you should have known if my car was double-parked I
was in a hurry. I was picking up my husband. Now I don't have
time to play games with you. Give me my car so I can take my
husband home and give him his dinner." "Yes, Mrs. Taylor."
Like all growing cities Lexington found it necessary to
convert some streets to one-way traffic. Aunt Norah was on one
of these streets heading north, but the street was marked for
one-way traffic in the other direction. The policeman stepped
in front of her car and raised his hand. She stopped. "Mrs.
Taylor, this is a one-way street and you are going in the wrong
direction." "Young man, I was driving on this street before
you were born, and I always go in this direction." "Yes,
Ma'am, I know that but this street has been one-way for the
last ten years and I have been watching you go the wrong way
and I just can't stand it any more." Mrs. Taylor said no more
and ceased driving in the wrong direction on that particular
street. That message, however, did not apply apparently to the
other one-way streets in Lexington.
At the time of my visit Aunt Norah was eighty years of
age. She played match-maker for her young Yankee great nephew,
and arranged for me to spend time with young girls of my age
for an afternoon. It turned out that they were all distant
cousins of mine one way or another, but I had no idea as to
what the relationships might have been. Certainly the
euphemism of "kissing cousins" would apply, but that did not
mean that I was free to kiss any of them I chose.
My first appointment that afternoon was with three of
these sweet southern belles all at one time. I found that in
spite of my Yankee accent, or possibly because of it, that they
found me interesting and the time flew until they announced
they had to leave. I went back to see Aunt Norah and found I
was in trouble. "Where have you been, young man?" I couldn't
imagine what I had done wrong and only then did I discover that
Aunt Norah had arranged for a series of meeting with a number
of other distant cousins. Any southern-born boy would have
known that no more than an hour could be spent on one of these
adventures and then it was time to return to home base. I had
just confirmed to all that I was just a gauche, gawky, ungainly
and unmannerly Yankee.
There is so much more that could be written about this
wonderful lady. An example would be the time she hosted a
meeting of the W.C.T.U. in her parlor. In the middle of the
meeting she said, "Excuse me for a moment," and disappeared
upstairs. I learned that it was because she was tired and
wanted to take a nap. In something just under a half hour she
returned saying, "I feel much better now." I asked her about
this and she said, "Oh, I knew everything they were going to
say. I've heard it all before."
Yes, there are so many things one could write about Aunt
Norah. Unfortunately the primary function here is the
compilation of our family genealogy.
16 Jul 03 QLE
|
| Person ID |
I47761 |
Garys-Tree |
| Last Modified |
28 Jan 2009 |
1864 - 1955 (91 years)