Mar 21, 2024 - Sale 2663

Sale 2663 - Lot 236

Price Realized: $ 1,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(FAMILY PAPERS.) Papers of the Rev. Hilton James Taylor of Georgia, a World War Two soldier. Approximately 200 items, most of them photographs, sleeved in a looseleaf binder (a few mounted on scrapbook leaves), plus two manuscript volumes; some photos with moderate to heavy wear. Various places, 1902-1960
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Additional Details

Hilton James Taylor (1924-2017) was raised in rural Pike County, GA. He moved to Atlanta, served in World War Two, attended college, and became a minister. This group of his personal papers includes:

72 photographs and 14 pieces of ephemera from his service in the 412th Engineer Dump Truck Company, which served in Europe. The largest photo is a 9¾ x 8-inch tinted formal portrait of Taylor in uniform. About ten of his fellow soldiers have provided signed postcard-sized photos, some posed with their weapons. Candid snapshots of base life and European scenes are also included; one shows two soldiers on a picnic with an English woman. Two postcard portraits of a young couple are captioned "Belgium Friends," and a British soldier is captioned "English friend Willie Cunningham." One shot shows a baseball game at the base, and another shows the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial Bridge built by the company across the Rhine River at Mainz. A commendation letter describes the unit's service, starting at Normandy in June 1944, on "rehabilitation of rail lines across France, which kept our rapidly advancing armies supplied." The June 1945 yearbook of his unit, titled "Our Job: ADSEC Engineer Mission on the Continent," is signed by about 35 of his fellow soldiers on the final blank.

Approximately 100 photographs show friends and family back home, during and after the war. Many are captioned. Four pages from family Bibles show births and deaths back to 1902. Taylor's 7th grade diploma from 1940. A Carver Bible Institute newsletter from 1952 shows Rev. Taylor on the front page as a new graduate.

A spiral-bound notebook, 12 x 7½ inches, was used for different purposes over a period of years. The early pages contain essays written by a student at a teacher's college in 1943. It also includes records of several Georgia weddings and funerals attended by Rev. Taylor, 1946-1960. The pages are numbered through 108; several are missing.

Record book of Lodge #3 of a fraternal benefit society in Columbus, GA, signed by Rev. Taylor's mother, Mary L. Taylor as assistant secretary. [12], 88 pages (4 leaves excised). Concord, GA, 1944-1948. With 11 dues booklets for Taylor family members in the Masonic Order of the Eastern Star dated 1945-1955; and 2 leaflets for annual meetings of the Union Investment Society, 1947-1948; and 15 other manuscripts and ephemera found laid in.