John Taylor

John Whittaker Taylor was born on February 22, 1932 in Milford, Utah. He was the third of four children of Raymond Wooley Taylor and Annie Randall Taylor. Shortly after his birth, his family moved to Spanish Fork, Utah, where he grew up. John was born during the great depression. He said, “We were born into poverty, but we did not realize it since everyone else around us was living under similar circumstances. The winters were cold, and the summers were hot. The first house I recall living in had no indoor plumbing or insulation in the walls. Having no plumbing in our house meant that the bathroom was called the ‘out house.” “Our ‘refrigerator’ for many years was an orange crate hanging from a tree limb, covered by a wet burlap sack. I got my first pair of shoes at the age of six, and we finally got indoor plumbing when I was ten.” Because of the humble circumstances, when John was five and he accidentally cut his thigh open on a broken bottle, his dad just poured alcohol on it and stitched it up with a needle and thread. His dad would also perform dental work on his children. John grew up eating Catfish and trout that he and his father caught, along with pheasant, ducks, geese, deer and elk that he had shot. He also ate lots of garden-fresh fruits and vegetables that his mom grew in her very large garden, and drank lots of fresh raw milk. The benefit of this clean unprocessed food during his youth and modern medicine during his aging years helped him live to be 93 years and 7 months old.

John grew up in a time when children had a lot of personal freedom. He talked about skinny dipping with his friends and running naked through the hay fields. John was a natural athlete. He enjoyed track, and football, but basketball was his love. He played high school basketball under coach Gus Black for the Spanish Fork Dons where he was honored as an All-State Player. A ward member Eldon McKell said he remembered him making a half-court shot at the buzzer to win the game. His junior year he was crowned the Prom King.

After graduating from high school, his family relocated to Provo, just down the hill from Brigham Young University where he played on the basketball team. His freshman year, the BYU Cougars won the NIT championship. His senior year, John played forward for the BYU Cougars and helped lead them to the NIT tournament. At the same time, his Provo bishop called him to coach the 9th Ward M-Men basketball team and they took second place in the All-Church tournament. All while John studied at BYU, played for BYU, and prepared for his mission to Argentina. Then on his mission, before the year’s end, he would play another 35 basketball games for his mission basketball team. In other words, in 1954, John played on two teams on two continents and coached another team for a combined total of 60 games.

John is a fourth-generation member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was named after his grandfather John Whittaker Taylor, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
Elder John Taylor served in Argentina for 2 ½ years from June, 1954 to December, 1956. He and the other missionaries, first travelled by train to New York City, and then by ship heading to Brazil, Uruguay, and eventually Argentina, the trip lasting a total of 19 days. Along the way, he and about 10 other missionaries received their gospel training from a general authority on board.

Three months later after arriving in Argentina, Dean Larsen, John’s BYU teammate, became his mission companion. Missionaries had little success in Argentina, sometimes knocking on a hundred doors without being able to share one message. To introduce and bolster the image of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and in Argentina, a mission basketball team was formed. While the formation of the team was not necessarily a preplanned idea, there just so happened to be enough university level basketball players serving as missionaries to pull off such a feat. At this time in Argentina only six of the 23 Provinces had Missionaries, over the course of the two seasons, the team traveled over 12,000 miles and performed before an estimated total audience of 150,000 people. They played in many areas where there were no members or missionaries.

The name “Los Mormones” was printed on their warmup suits to help promote The Book of Mormon. And they didn’t just play Basketball, they sometimes were the half time entertainment as well (singing and playing musical instruments). Despite political unrest and a forthcoming revolution, they were able to return for a second season, they won 42 of the 45games. A third season would have required an extension of Elder Taylor’s mission, which he willingly offered despite already serving two and a half years, but with a change in mission presidents, Los Mormones was dissolved.

John’s BYU teammate Dean Larsen wrote in his journal, “when it was time for me to be released as a missionary…I called John Taylor and said I guess we better go see the mission president in Buenos Aires and tell him we are supposed to be released.” Elder Taylor said, “On December 2, 1956, Dean and I went to the mission home. President Pace gave us each a check for $500 and said good luck.” The pair travelled from Argentina to Bolivia, crossed Lake Titicaca on an overnight boat ride to Peru, and then traveled by train to Cuzco, and visited the mountaintop ruins of Machu Picchu. They flew to Lima, and from there to Panama to see the canal, and then continued to Guatemala, Mexico, and finally arrived in the U.S.A. on December 18th.

It was the Christmas season when John returned to Provo, Utah. After his mission, he lived with his parents while completing his bachelor’s degree and Air Force ROTC program, which he had joined to satisfy his military requirements and still play out his eligibility at BYU prior to his mission.
While on his mission, John’s parents had rented out their basement to some BYU college girls. Upon returning home, one of those girls caught John' s attention. Her name was Carol Folkman, a junior at BYU from Nyssa, Oregon. Nine months after meeting Carol, they were married in the Manti Temple. The date they chose to marry was Friday the 13th of September. For them, this date was “good luck.”
Six months later, John began his military service as a second lieutenant at the Oxnard Air Force base in Camarillo, California. It was there that their first child was born, a daughter, Carlon. Along with office duties, John played and coached basketball for his base in California and continued when he was transferred to England. While coaching in England he traveled all over the European continent, and they even played their championship game in Adonna Turkey.

When their daughter Carlon, was 3yrs old, she kept telling her parents, that for Christmas she was getting a real live baby. And a miracle occurred in the Taylor family as they were called by 4 separate church leaders that had all been at the same mission meeting and asked if they would be interested in adopting a baby the week prior to Christmas. The missionaries had converted a single woman who was about to give birth and she wanted her child to go to an LDS home. And 2 days later they had a beautiful brand-new baby boy which they named John Scott Taylor. And Carlon got her Christmas Miracle the week before Christmas--a real live baby.
Six months later, after serving his allotted time in the Air Force, John was released and their young family returned to Provo, where John attended graduate school at BYU studying Physical Education and he wrote his thesis on–guess what–“The fundamentals of basketball.” During his time in graduate school, they had a daughter which they named Rheanne Gay, who passed away only days after her birth. She is buried in the Provo cemetery where several Taylor family members now reside and where John will be laid to rest next to his eternal companion.

After graduation, his first coaching position was at South Fork High School, located near the small town of Miranda, California. During that year John served as the Branch President of the Miranda Branch and baptized Carlon in the snowy, icy cold Eel River. Later that spring their youngest son, Jairus, was born in Provo while they still lived in Miranda. The summer following Jairus’s birth, John accepted a job at Lynwood High School in south-central Los Angeles. John taught high school, coached multiple sports, worked summers as a street use inspector, and he and Carol catered parties in wealthy areas, sold Amway...and many more creative ventures to make ends meet.

After the area in which they lived saw a significant spike in the crime rate in one year (300%) Having their home broken into and robbed twice, a child witness a shooting, be exposed to drugs, and seven years in southern California, John and Carol desired a more tranquil place to raise their children. Carol moved with her children to her hometown, an eastern Oregon farming community, and John followed them eight months later after fulfilling his teaching contract and selling their home. I remember a very nice neighbor coming over as we were leaving and thanking my dad for the example he had been to him as a husband and father. “I have never seen a man treat their wife and children like you do.” He reunited with his family in Nyssa that June where they enjoyed an active social life. Enjoying holidays, dancing, traveling and parties with family and friends. The children were able to reconnect with extended family members, make friends, and have opportunities to learn the value of hard work on farms. They raised their children there for the next ten years.

Eventually, the Taylors followed two of their children, who had landed in Provo Utah. But Carol couldn't give up her friends and family in Oregon, so they continued to go back and forth, sometimes residing in Provo and sometimes in Nyssa. Not too long after a life-changing automobile accident, Carol developed significant chronic health difficulties, and as often happens, they progressed and evolved into more significant health issues. For ten years before her death in 2011, John, with the help of family and friends, served as her loyal caretaker. As the years passed, John was hampered with health problems as well, he also required much assistance for several years and he had the opportunity to live with his daughter and her family. Giving him much joy. Until his last days, John remained a loyal BYU Cougar fan. The BYU Basketball team members he played with met monthly for lunch for years until they slowly dwindled in numbers due to disability and finally death. The last I heard there was only one left. Without the limitations of his earthly body, I can envision my parents’ happy reunion, dancing, visiting with family and friends, and maybe even my dad playing basketball with his BYU or mission teammates.

John is survived by his children Carlon, Scott, and Jairus; eight grandchildren and one great grandchild with one more on the way.