Donna Taylor

She was born on July 15, 1935 in Aransas Pass, Texas to Chadwick Emerson and Winifred Elsie (Blake) Shock. She was a 1953 graduate of Refugio (Texas) High School. After high school, she enrolled at Texas College of Arts and Industries (which became Texas A&I University in 1967 and Texas A&M University – Kingsville in 1993).

It was there she met and soon married James Lee Taylor on May 28, 1955. A French-horn player, she was a proud member of both the Refugio High School and Texas A&I marching bands. She graduated from A&I in 1958 with a bachelor’s degree in Home Economics as well as Texas Teaching Certification for elementary, middle and high school levels. She is a lifetime member of Kappa Omicron Nu, the National Honor Society for the Human Sciences.

Upon Jim’s graduation, they left South Texas for Fort Lee, New Jersey, where she became a third-grade teacher. After a few years, the young couple was transferred to Tulsa, Oklahoma briefly, and then moved to Wichita, Kansas, where their daughters, Tracey and Holly, were born. Transferred to Houston in 1967, Donna and Jim soon joined Memorial Drive United Methodist Church, where she would spend the rest of her professional career, starting as a teacher during the inaugural year of the church’s innovative School for Little People preschool, and eventually joining the church’s administrative staff in the early 70s. She worked with, and for, many of the ministers and departments in the church and was secretary for head minister Dr. H. Eugene Cragg and responsible for church’s weekly newsletter and Sunday bulletin when she retired in June of 1992.

It was then she expanded her role as wife and mother to include her most cherished role — Nana. She loved her grandchildren fiercely and spent her free time caring for and about them (and their mothers.) She was truly a master of family and holiday get-togethers, hosting and organizing Thanksgiving, Easter and most memorably, Christmas celebrations that will be impossible to recreate without her.

Donna was preceded in death by her parents and her sister, Beverly Miller. She is survived by her husband of 64 years, Jim; daughters Tracey (Todd) Woodard, and Holly (James) Meredith; four grandchildren, John Taylor Woodard, Cara Woodard, Warren Meredith and Dalton Meredith; and several nieces and nephews.

The Taylor family would also like to thank Daisy Christian and her daughters Mary Marikuma and Tombura Gorham for their love, patience and dedication to Donna during the past year.

A celebration of Donna’s life will be held on Wednesday, September 25 at 2 p.m. at Memorial Drive United Methodist Church (12955 Memorial Drive, 77079). Interment will follow at Memorial Oaks Cemetery (13001 Katy Freeway, 77079)

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorials be made to the Alzheimer’s Association (alz.org) or the charity of your choice.