John T. Taylor, DDS
By D. A. Sharpe
Dr. John Thomas Taylor,
born August 12, 1864, Saint Louis, Missouri, is the great grandfather of my
wife, Suzanne Margaret Boggess Sharpe.
Dr. Taylor seemed to take
advantage of many opportunities, as they lived in many locations, practicing
the profession of dentistry. This
included California, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Texas. He and Ida Capatola Hicks were married
about 43 years. He was divorced
from Ida Capatola Hicks about 1929.
Our information about him after that is limited. He remarried in 1929 a woman named
Florence J. Rohere. Family oral
tradition, undocumented, leads us to believe she is some one who was on his
dental office staff.
There is a Mason Family
Tree Report on Ancestry.com
which reports that Dr. Thomas and family resided in 1910 at Plano Town, Collin
County, Texas about 15 miles north of Dallas. It does not cite documentation for that
fact.
The 1910 Census in
Sulphur Springs, Hopkins County, Texas, indicates a household that is
complex. That location is about 80
miles east of Dallas. Besides
John's wife, Ida Capatola, and three children of whom we would have expected to
be listed, there is an indication of a 64 year old widowed grandmother and an
88 year old widowed great grandmother living with this family. It does not indicate weather these are
the ancestors of John or of Ida.
Since we do know the names of Ida's ancestors, it should be assumed that
these names belong to John's family.
The names listed are Belle Hendren and Cornelius (great grandmother's
last name not indicated). Belle was
Dr. Taylor's Mother. It does
indicate these two widowed ladies were born in Kentucky and that both of their
parents were born in Kentucky.
(Source: 1910 Census, Volume I, Hopkins County,
Texas, Hopkins County Genealogical Society, Sulphur Springs, Texas, page 402.)
The date of his divorce
from Ida Capatola Hicks Taylor us not documented, but apparently occurred
between their coming to Fort Worth in 1915 and the 1930 Census when his
household is displayed with his second wife.
In the 1930 U. S. Census,
Dr. Taylor's household consisted only of his second wife, Florence, and his
mother, Belle. This location was
Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Texas.
We believe Dr. Taylor
moved to Fort Worth about 1915.
This is drawn from the article in the May 20, 1935 issue of the Fort
Worth Star-Telegram about his untimely death, which stated that he had
practiced dentistry in Fort Worth for 20 years. His photograph and the story was
headlined, "Dentist Dies in Office Blast." Early in the morning of Sunday, May 19,
he had gone fishing, so thought his family. However, they conjectured that the
fishing must not have been good, and that he must have gone to his office to
work, as was his custom occasionally on Sunday mornings. The fishing may have been at the Trinity
River, as it is just a few blocks from his dental office. Though the article does not report what
was thought to have caused the explosion, my father-in-law, T. S. Boggess, Jr.
tells me he thinks that it was a Bunsen burner, a gas burning laboratory piece
of equipment, which pilot light could have ignited from a gas leak in the
laboratory. My father-in-law
visited Dr. Thomas and his family several times when T. S. was a boy, so he
remembers the lab in his dentist office.
The newspaper article
described Dr. Taylor as an active man with vigor, being age 71. He was known to walk back and forth to
his office, a round trip of six miles, so the article states. However, my measurement is that his home
is 1.8 miles from his office, a total 3.6mile round trip. He lived at 817 Travis, just south of
the central business and just south of Pennsylvania Avenue and north of
Rosedale Street. It was the first
street west of Hemphill Street. His
office was at 207 1/2 West Second Street, right in the central business section
of downtown Fort Worth, just a couple of blocks southwest from the Courthouse. I have visited and photographed both of
these locations in October 2007.
The news article in the
Fort Worth Star Telegram, May 20, 1935,
reported that, following the explosion, fireman C. A. Senior found his
body in a doorway of the second story office. The death was ruled as accidental by
burning, according to Justice of the Peace Beaty. The Justice Beaty said that Dr. Taylor's
car parked near-by contained 12 half-gallon fruit jars in paper sacks and that
a half of a candle wrapped in paper was found in his pocket. The car also contained a seine [a type
of net used in fishing] and a double-barreled shotgun. Members of the family said Dr. Taylor
had arisen at 5:30 AM, announcing his intention to go fishing. The Trinity River is within walking
distance of his office, and it was conjectured he'd visited his office after
fishing, apparently without luck, as no fish were found in his possession. The newspaper said he was born in Bells,
Tennessee, but we believe other information we have saying his birth was in
Saint Louis, Missouri. The article
said he graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1885. The article said, before his practice in
Fort Worth, he practiced in Texarkana.
We believe he practiced in several other locations as well.
The funeral service was
conducted by the Rev. L. D. Anderson at the Mount Olivet Cemetery in Fort
Worth. I visited the Cemetery
2007-10-01 to locate his grave site.
The proprietors of the cemetery drew a chart of where Dr. Taylor lay,
but reported that no grave marker had ever been placed. I found the grave site and saw where
Florence, his second wife, was on one side, having died in 1970, and on the
other side was someone else, apparently having no relationship with the
Taylor's. Dr. Taylor was survived,
according to the newspaper article, by his second wife and by his three
children, all of whom were from his first marriage.
Sharing the same page in
that May 20, 1935 newspaper, curiously, was the report of the motorcycle crash
in Dorsetshire, England on the same day as Dr. Taylor's death. In the article died Col T. E.
Lawrence at age 46, better known as "Lawrence of Arabia."
D. A. Sharpe
805 Derting Road East
Aurora, TX 76078-3712