Wayne Samuel Taylor

Wayne Samuel Taylor, 94, of rural Gower, MO passed away peacefully on February 23, 2014 in the wonderful care of NorthCare Hospice.

 

He was born on April 17, 1919 in Bayard, NE to Samuel Henry and Martha Marie (Wehrli) Taylor.  He graduated from Mound City High School in Mound City, MO in 1937 after a very successful track career finishing second in the mile in the 1937 Missouri State High School Track Meet.  After a year working to earn money for schooling, he enrolled at Northwest Missouri State Teachers College in 1938.  He continued his track career at Northwest running the mile and the half mile setting the school half mile record in 1939.  In 1941 he learned to fly in an open cockpit aircraft compliments of a federally funded program designed to have trained pilots with their wings for the anticipated war.  In January 1942 he and a close friend hitchhiked to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (in two rides!) where the Army Air Corps was hiring trained pilots as instructors at Cimarron Filed for the young men who would man the cockpits of the World War II fighters and bombers.

 

On September 26, 1942, he married Susan Foley in Oklahoma City.  They remained in Oklahoma City until the end of the war when they moved to Kansas City where Wayne was hired by Trans World Airlines in 1946.

 

Wayne flew for TWA for the next 33 years in DC-3s, Martin 404s, Super G Connies and Boeing 727s with most of his service in the left hand seat.  After retirement in 1979, he and Susan moved to rural Clinton County and built their retirement home on the farm land they had been acquiring since 1957, they were back to their rural farming roots.  For the next 35 years Wayne tended to the farming, gardening and cattle ranching he grew up with and really never left until he fell on January 25, 2014 and broke his hip.

 

He is survived by his wife Susan; sons Tommy Taylor and fiancé Barbara and Jon Taylor and wife Paulette; daughter Jane Day and husband Arnie; eight grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren.

 

Funeral Service:  7:00 p.m. Monday March 10^th with visitation 6:00-7:00 p.m. prior to the service at the First Baptist Church in Plattsburg, MO.

Family graveside service will be at Lick Fork Cemetery in rural Daviess County.

In lieu of flowers the family suggests memorial contributions to the building fund at the church.

Arrangements Hixson-Klein Funeral Home, Gower.