Newspaper: Robert Allen Taylor Dies of Injuries 1956, Franklin Parish, LA,
Submitted August 2009 by: Barry C. Stevens

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The Franklin Sun     Winnsboro, LA     February 9, 1956
Submitted August 2009 by: Barry C. Stevens

 
Accident is Fatal for Baskin Junior

Robert Allen Taylor Dies of Injuries

Death came to Robert Allen Taylor, popular 18-year-old 
Baskin High school student at 12:30 a.m. Tuesday in the 
Conway Memorial hospital – three days after he was critically 
injured in a three-car collision near Rayville.  The son of 
Mrs. Lucille Wright of Baskin, he suffered a broken neck, 
brain concussion, crushed chest and fractures of both legs and a hand.

The boy’s companion on the night of the fatal accident, James Shirley, 
23, 111 Pine street, Monroe, son of Samuel Shirley, route three, Winnsboro, 
is confined to Conway Memorial hospital with a broken right leg, cuts 
and bruises on the head and shock.  Which youth was at the wheel at the 
time of the fatal crash had not been established Tuesday night, State 
Trooper J.D. Baker of Rayville told The Sun.

Young Shirley, who has been in a semi-conscious state since the accident 
has maintained, however, that he was not driving.

Also hospitalized as a result of the accident is Robert Dunn of Rayville, 
driver of one of the two pickups involved in the accident, who is at the 
St. Francis hospital with a fractured pelvis bone and dislocated hip.  
The third driver, David Self of route two, Rayville, was uninjured.

According to Trooper Baker, about 8 p.m. Saturday the boys riding in a 1951 
Plymouth owned by young Shirley’s father about a mile and a half east of Rayville, 
apparently came up behind a pickup driven by Mr. Self at a high rate of speed.  
Realizing they were about to hit the pickup, the driver evidentally made a desperate 
attempt to swerve to miss the Self pickup and crashed into the Dunn pickup, 
which was traveling west.  Both the Shirley automobile and the Dunn pickup 
were demolished.  The Self vehicle was knocked off the road by the impact, 
the trooper said.

The three injured were rushed first to a Rayville clinic, then to Monroe.

Funeral services for the Baskin High junior were held at 2 p.m. Wednesday 
at the Friendship Baptist church, where he was an active member.  
The Rev. James L. Eppinette officiated.

Survivors include his mother; a brother, Mac Taylor of Baskin; a sister, 
Mrs. Edith Fife of Baskin; tow half-brothers, Sam and Roy Wright, both of 
Baskin; a half-sister, Oneida Wright of Baskin; and his grandmother, 
Mrs. Edith Taylor of Little Rock, Miss.

Pallbearers were Edward Roberts, Allen Roberts, Royce Johnson, Raymond Morris, 
Sherman Clark and Melvin Searcy.

The Baskin High school 11th grade were honorary pallbearers.  

Interment was in the Union church cemetery under the direction of 
Mulhearn Funeral home of Winnsboro.