Taylor Lynnette Willingham made her appearance on August 17, 1957, at 4:44a.m. Her parents, Ben and June Willingham welcomed her, loved her, nurtured her and read to her. She loved to read, visiting libraries at a very early age. She loved school and excelled in it, graduating with honors from Lyman High School, Longwood, FL and an MBA from San Jose State Univ.

Feeling unfulfilled in her first post college position, she became an adult literacy volunteer—as she put it, to feed her soul. It was the ultimate place to allow her to work for other passions—the homeless, poverty, crime, children, and domestic violence. She was made Director of the Santa Clara County Library Reading Program, which provided programs to teach adults to read at public libraries, in the community and in the county detention center.

In the mid 1980s, she began moderating forums because she was intrigued by the idea of a nationwide network of civic and educational organizations that invite citizens to deliberate on issues of common concern. She found enormous power in the notion that citizens could learn about issues through sharing their experiences with one another and perhaps reach a common ground.

She moved to Salado in 2000, to be near her parents and brother Brent and his wife Terri, and specifically her beloved niece Becca and nephew Ben. She continued moderating forums, while getting involved in the community as a Salado Library Trustee and President of Salado Education Foundation.

In 2007, she reconnected with a high school classmate, Terry Allen Crain. They married on May 31, 2008, at the home of her parents in Salado. Taylor experienced motherhood of two teenage girls by hosting Anasty from Russia, and Ola from Egypt for six months. The apron strings were cut early by Taylor’s illness.

Terry lovingly committed his life to Taylor as she battled cancer with a vengeance. Though Taylor was ready to go home to her Heavenly Father, she felt there was so much more work to be done.

Taylor slipped through the fingers of her loving husband and parents, at 10p.m. on September 5, 2011, having accomplished so much, in so little time, impacting so many people.

“My mother loved to read to me,
I longed to learn to read,
The more I longed, the more I read,
The more I read, the more I learned,
The more I learned the more I read,
I loved to learn because my mother read to me.
Taylor Willingham