Grant/Taylor article
Helen Rae (Grant) Taylor
By Karen Cuccinello
The Stamford Village Library history room has a nicely framed faded photo of Helen and I always wondered why. When reading some of the library board meeting minutes I found out the origin of the photo.
Helen was born April 24,1888 in Stamford to John P. and Carrie E. (Powell) Grant. She had one sibling, an older brother Leslie, who became a lawyer and sadly died in a car accident on September 5, 1914 age 28. Helen married George Danforth Taylor on June 11, 1913 in Harpersfield. George’s parents were Hector Payson and Maie Fidelia (Danforth) Taylor. Helen and George raised three children: Marion (Mrs. Walter C. Fraze), Martha (Mrs. Henry H. Dayton 1919-1996) and John (1921-1931; he died as a result of a bolt of lightning).
In 1945 Helen sold the boarding house, The New Grant House, that her father built.
September 1948 Stamford Mirror – A large crowd gathered at the home of Mr. and Mrs. George D. Taylor, Stamford, for the annual clam-steam of the Stamford Rotary club.
Helen helped run her husband’s 7th generation Taylor farm with growing cauliflower and producing maple syrup and milk. She was a Notary Public, organist at the Stamford Presbyterian Church, member of the Fresh Air Fund Committee, charter member of the Stamford-Hobart Inner Wheel and regent of the Abigail Harper chapter Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). The reason for the framed photo at the library is that it was a memorial to her for being a library trustee from the early 1950’s until her death on June 8, 1962 in Stamford.
Her husband George had predeceased her in 1959; both are buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Jefferson.