35 The Widowson’s & Taylor

 Not all of the characters that lived on Read Island had a regular day job.  Many had come to the island to escape civilization and some at the request of their family. The Widowson’s were such a family and lived there it was said as remittance people from England.  That meant that they were paid to leave England because they were an embracement to their family.  It was said that they bathed very little and liked to sunbath in the nude.  Such behavior back in the 40’s and 50’s was considered quite scandalous.  It was also said that they had a daughter that was not right in the head but their oldest, Thomas, eventually went off to University and got his Doctorate degree.

One of the most unusual characters was a man I only knew as Taylor.  His biggest claim to fame was his dad was a retired Admiral from the US navy.  Taylor was one of those characters that escaped to Read Island from the US.  I believe the Simons had placed an ad in some US journal advertising their Edenic shack, as they were building a new house.  Taylor answered the ad and loved the place.

He liked to think of himself as an inventor.  I remember one time he had my sister Dawna and I pose for a photo to illustrate one of his inventions.

He liked to wear buckskin shorts held up with big suspenders and big leather boots.  How often he bathed was up for debate. He was quite sociable and liked to come by around mealtime for some good home cooking and would sit by the door waiting for supper, while picking pieces of sticks and other odd artifacts out of his long scraggly beard and head.  This always bugged my mother, as there always was a small pile of debris by his chair to be cleaned up when he left.

He was kind of cool and would invite me to listen to classical music from the CBC on his battery-operated radio.  I would sit in his kitchen between his wood stove and the wheelbarrow while we intently enjoyed the music.  The wheelbarrow was always in the kitchen by the stove and he would only take it out to be refilled when the fire burned down.  He eventually acquired goats, which he took to sleeping with but the infestation of fleas got so bad the poor goats had to sleep out in the cold again.  

Taylor was just one of the many eccentrics that chose to get away from society and do their own thing on Read Island. As a kid growing up I enjoyed his uniqueness and took his eccentricities for granted even though my mother was not so charitable.  His uniqueness enriched me and it helped me to be more accepting of others as an adult.  Taylor was part of my island upbringing and a piece of the mosaic that I missed when I left the island for boarding school at 15.