Taylor, known as Hamilton’s “Lady of Letters” for her many correspondences and a longtime Hamilton columnist, died on April 1, 1953, and 71 years later, the Lavender Ladies Club of Stella Weiler Taylor Society, is taking steps to keep her name alive.
“We want to make sure her story, the story of Hamilton and women’s history, is told,” said Carrie Halim, a society member and curator of the Heritage Hall Museum. “We want to pass that legacy to the next generation.”
Eventually, Halim, part of a homeschool group, said she’d like to use Taylor’s writings to create an educational curriculum.
“I feel this generational bridge so these things don’t get lost,” she said. “We have to record this profound history.”
Another society member, Alice Sizemore, added: “It’s so important to keep the memory of her life alive.”
Taylor’s newspaper column, “Rosemary, That’s For Remembrance,” first appeared in The Hamilton Evening Journal in 1931 and later appeared in the Hamilton Journal-News when the evening paper merged with the Hamilton Daily News in 1933, said Kathleen Stuckey Fox, the author of three Hamilton historical books.
Taylor’s articles, often called the “best thing” in the newspaper, ran from October 1931 to March 1948 when she had a stroke and spent five years at Mercy Hospital until her death. She’s buried at Greenwood Cemetery near her sister, Eva, who died in 1952.
Stuckey Fox’s third book, “Remembering Stella Weiler Taylor,” is a continuation of the biography that her mother, Kathleen Neilan Stuckey, wrote in 1940. The book showcases Taylor’s life and her impact on the Hamilton community.
Stuckey Fox said she discovered some of her family history through Taylor’s writings that resembled a personal and Hamilton diary.
Taylor wrote the lyrics for the song, “My Hamilton,” and in a poem, Taylor penned that “Hamilton” would be on her heart after her death.
“She embodied the love of your community,” Stuckey Fox said.
Sizemore is researching the hundreds of Taylor columns and compiling a spreadsheet of everyone she mentioned. The articles, Sizemore said, take her to “another world” because of the in-depth descriptions.
Mary Anne Davis, another society member, said after reading the book she learned that a group of women formed a committee and sewed a flag for Hamilton soldiers to carry into Civil War battles. Her great-grandmother chaired that committee, Davis said.
The flag returned to Hamilton after the war. The women then told Davis the flag has been restored through a large donation from the Hamilton Community Foundation and hangs in the Butler County Historical Society.
The Journal-News periodically runs a “Good News” story in the Saturday edition. If you have a story idea, email contributing writer Rick McCrabb at rmccrabb1@gmail.com.
HOW TO JOIN LAVENDER LADIES CLUB
If you’re interested in joining the Lavender Ladies Club of Stella Weiler Taylor Society, email Kathleen Stuckey Fox at foxks@miamioh.edu.
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