Beverly Taylor | 89
In loving memory of Beverly Taylor. On February 19, 2022 Beverly Taylor passed away. We are honored that she was willing to participate in this project. She was beloved by her community for her decades as a teacher, her service to her church, and her tireless efforts and advocacy for older adults in the Bayview.
This profile is a written profile only.
Interview date: 6/19/20
Interview and written profile by: Judy Goddess
Referred by: Marie Jobling
Defining moment:
Taylor answered quickly. “The defining moment was six years ago when my husband died. He had Alzheimer's and a pacemaker. He had been discharged the day before from Veterans Affairs, he had been complaining about a pain in his heart. When we got there, he just sat and waited from 5 pm to midnight when they discharged him.
We had sitting together at home. I got up to go to the kitchen and he got out of his wheelchair to go the bathroom. He died right there, on the floor. His death broke my heart.
We went everywhere together. We traveled, I brought him to meetings with me, even when he had Alzheimer's. When my family and the doctors told me, I should put him in a home, I told them I’d never do that. He was never so violent that I couldn’t keep him at home. “Big as I am, my husband is not going to hit me.”
We took an oath, “for better or for worse, in sickness or in health, till death do us part.” I was not going to break that oath. I told him, “I’m going to be your doctor, your nurse. You’re not going anywhere.” His last words were “my wife.” I know he was satisfied.
We had 40 years together. No anger, no fuss. He treated me as his queen.
Taylor had met her husband decades before they married when she was a student at Southern University in Louisiana, and he was a lifeguard. But he didn’t notice her until they were reintroduced in the Bay Area. I told him, “you lifeguards like those yellow-skin girls with pretty long hair.” I wasn’t one of them.
Beverly Taylor calls herself “a Christian woman, a child of the King.” She’s lived her life helping others. For 40 years she taught school, initially in New Orleans, LA, and then in Oakland, CA. For the past 29 years she’s been an active volunteer. She coordinates the Network for Elders in the Bay View and serves on the San Francisco Faith-Based Coalition (a coalition of 35 churches in the Bay View and Western Addition), and is on the Advisory Council for the Commission on Aging out of the San Francisco Department of Disability and Aging Services.
In recent years, Taylor’s diabetes has made it difficult for her to get around, but that hasn’t slowed her down.
She makes phone calls for her church (St. Paul Tabernacle Baptist Church), the Community Living Campaign’s food delivery program in the Bay View and the Network for Elders. Chester Williams who works with CLC and has known Taylor for years, said, “Beverly works nonstop: she never says no to a request for help. Commitment to the community describes her, she’s always available to help the betterment of seniors within the community.”
The pandemic has had a minimal impact on her life. She’s “not a going out person.” Though she hasn’t left the house since March 10, (before the order to shelter in place). “It doesn’t bother me. I didn’t go to a shopping center when I could. I don’t like crowds and I don’t like spending money.
She receives food from her Church and from the Dr. George W. Davis Center. In fact, she receives so much food, she gives some of it away.
What she does miss are the social activities that “used to bring us together. The banquets where we could reminisce. Where we keep us aware of each other. Where we had some leverage in our lives, some activities.
“There’s so much to do to create a better world, to help San Francisco come together. The Lord is trying to get our attention. We must never stop caring for each other.”
Beverly Taylor was born in 1931 in Algiers, LA. and moved to the Bay Area in 1969.
