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The Taylors were "truck farmers." My mother's grandfather lived to be ninety or more. He was from the northern seacoast region of Ireland. That is all I know of him.
When I was a "wee-wee" youngster, I recall going up a long, pothole lane in a Model-A Ford to a massive old farmhouse with enormous shutters. Some of them were kept closed the year round: warmth for the cold wintry blasts; coolness for the scorching summer heat. Delaware along the river, where the farm was situated, was and is a very humid place.
My three older sisters all remember going to Wilmington on Saturday with our grandmother . . . to Shipley Street, via horse and wagon, where the Taylors rented a stall (or space) that they used to market their produce. Charles, my mother's father, to supplement his income, took care of the carriage and horses of a wealthy woman in New Castle. It was she who encouraged mom to "be somebody," loaning her books to read (by the light of the fire at night, maybe -- jus' like Ol' Abe did). Minerva's favorite book was AESOP'S FABLES -- which she quoted quite frequently for the rest of her life. Amen!
Grandmother Taylor's people -- Irish Catholics -- were from Philadelphia. One of them was a streetcar conductor. His son became a prominent judge in the State of Delaware. I never heard a thing about the others -- human nature being what it is . . .
My mother got up about four or five in the morning and took a trolley from New Castle to Wilmington for her formal education. She was graduated by the Wilmington High School, not sure when: quite an achievement in those days.
Mom -- if my memory has not failed me altogether -- first saw dad, whom she always called "Buehler," standing on the platform of the Bear station, Bear, Delaware. She met him not too long after at a dance in New Castle. Bill Tibit was her beau at the time. He was my mother's escort at the dance; however, at the end of the evening, she left not with her date, but with Buehler. And that, folks, is how I got my parents. What if . . . . Her obituary follows:
Minerva K. Diehl of Wilmington, died Monday in the Methodist Country House, Greenville.
Mrs. Diehl taught briefly at Augustine Mills School on Augustine Cut-off. During World War II, she worked in a federally funded day-care program and then, for many years as a manager of cafeterias in the Oak Grove School District in Elsmere. She retired more than 30 years ago. Her husband, Francis B. Diehl, died in 1940.
Survivors: son, Robert B. Diehl of Wilmington; daughters, Marguerite D. Jarmon of Damascus, Va., Frances D. Lindauer of Kingston, Tenn., and Mildred D. Oliver of Wilmington; 10 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren.
Service: noon Saturday, Gebhart Funeral Home, 531 Delaware St., New Castle. Visitation: 11 a.m. Burial: Christiana Presbyterian Cemetery, North Old Baltimore Pike, Christiana.
Contributions: Greenhill Presbyterian Church, 3112 Pennsylvania Ave., Wilmington, DE.
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