Kathleen Stuckey Fox, Carrie Halim, and Nancy Bake Arthur will give a PowerPoint presentation and readings on the life of Stella Weiler Taylor (1869-1953), born in Hamilton, daughter of Josephine Straub Weiler and Eugene A. Weiler.   We are going all out for this presentation:  souvenirs to take home, Stella Weiler Taylor cookies, and lots of memories to share and history to assimilate with interested Hamilton history buffs.

In a twist of role playing, Kathleen Stuckey Fox will be portraying her mother, Kathleen Neilan Stuckey; Carrie Halim will be portraying Stella Weiler Taylor; and Nancy Bake Arthur will be portraying her mother, Evelyn Mae Eagle Bake.  As it turned out, Kathleen Neilan Stuckey was a close friend of Stella’s, and Evelyn Mae Eagle had Stella as an elementary teacher at Madison School.  This interest was discovered between good friends Kathleen Fox and Nancy Arthur through conversation.  Kathleen Fox introduced Carrie Halim to Stella Weiler Taylor, and she fell in love with her, thus Carrie will be portraying SWT and will be reading six selected articles that we three chose to showcase the evening of April 4.  After the six readings by Carrie Halim, Nancy Arthur will share with you her mother’s passion and love for Stella Weiler Taylor, drawing upon the scrapbook her mother kept on Mrs. Taylor and from personal conversations she had with her mother. 

Through research on her family, Kathleen Fox rediscovered the two volumes of the Rosemary books, which enlightened her thoroughly about her family.  These volumes were published in 1940 by the Journal Publishing Company, and they contain reprints of approximately ten years of Stella Weiler Taylor’s society news articles, entitled, “Rosemary, That’s for Remembrance,” which appeared in The Hamilton Journal News for almost twenty years, beginning in 1931, published every Saturday.  It was Ethelyne Grove Gard who married Homer Gard in 1935, who instigated these volumes.  Homer Gard was editor, publisher and owner of The Hamilton Journal News for over fifty years.  Quoting from Ethelyne Gard from the Foreward, of Volume I, Ethelyne states, “Rosemary by Stella Weiler Taylor is so precious that it seemed to me these memories should be put into book form.” And thus these two volumes were given life.

Kathleen Neilan Stuckey and Ethelyne Gard were very good friends, and were related through marriage.  So in the front of Volume I, Kathleen Neilan Stuckey wrote the history of SWT up to that point in time of her life, and called her article, A PEN PICTURE.  Quoting from Kathleen Neilan Stuckey’s article, “Predestined and foreordained must have been the birth, on a bitter January day, at the very point of junction of the once separate communities of Rossville and Hamilton, of Lillian Estella Weiler. Singularly appropriate, too, was the name her gifted mother chose – Stella – star, risen now to brightest magnitude in the wide sweep of sky above a Hamilton she has made hers.”  Very foretelling of the importance of how the life of SWT would impact the history of Hamilton.

Mrs. Taylor is well remembered in Hamilton, but we three women, great Stella fans, decided that she needed to have her life showcased on this day, April 4, 2019, exactly sixty-six years to the date of her burial in Greenwood Cemetery. 

Please come and join us on Thursday April 4th, at 7:00 PM for this presentation, discussion and refreshments and to learn more about Hamilton’s gift, Stella Weiler Taylor, and the impact she had on the City of Hamilton.

Article written by Kathleen Stuckey Fox, author and Hamilton historian.