Evans J. Taylor, educator

Evans J. Taylor, a retired private school educator who enjoyed travel and playing bridge, died Oct. 3 from complications of a stroke at the Blakehurst Retirement Community in Towson. The former Ruxton resident was 88.

The former Evans Johnson, daughter of William E. Johnson, owner and president of Johnson Brothers Radio & TV, and his wife, Eleanor Rogers Johnson, a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised on Juniper Road in Guilford.

She attended the Baltimore Academy of the Visitation and graduated in 1949 from Friends School. She earned a bachelor’s degree in 1953 in teaching from what is now Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

Mrs. Taylor began teaching in 1955 at Roland Park Public school and later joined the faculty of Roland Park Country School in1970, where she taught second grade until retiring in 1996.

She met her future husband, Robert Walker Taylor, when they were teenager during summers spent at Sherwood Forest. The couple fell in love and married in 1952.

Mrs. Taylor and her husband enjoyed traveling abroad and throughout the U.S. In addition to being an avid bridge player, she liked playing tennis, was a needlepointer, and lunched frequently with a group that called themselves the Lunch Bunch.

She was a member of the L’Hirondelle Club and had appeared in many productions of the Paint and Powder Club that raised money for charities.

For the last decade she and her husband, former sales manager of T. Talbott Bond Co., who earlier had been the owner of Johnson Brothers Radio & TV, resided at Blakehurst.

She was a longtime communicant of the Shrine of the Sacred Heart in Mount Washington.

A Mass of Christian burial was offered Thursday, Oct. 8 at the Roman Catholic Church of the Nativity in Timonium.

In addition to her husband of 68 years, she is survived by her son, Robert W. Taylor Jr. of Towson; a daughter, Catharine Eleanor “Kellie” Mahaffy of Mount Washington; and three grandchildren.