Barry County Missouri Obituary Senator Robert Love "Fiddling Bob" Taylor ? - ? Source: Scrapbook bought at the estate sale of Vivian Roller by Ted W. Roller ------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------"FIDDLING BOB" TAYLOR IS DEAD ------SENATOR PASSES AWAY AFTER TWO WEEKS ILLNESS. ------Washington, April 1 -- Robert Love Taylor, senior United States senator from Tennessee -- "Fiddling Bob," to all the south -- died here yesterday. He was unable to withstand the shock of an operation performed last Thursday. He was 61 years old. Early yesterday the senator began to fail to respond to stimulants. Mrs. Taylor, worn out by a day and night vigils, had gone to her apartments. At 3 o'clock in the morning the senator began to sink so rapidly that she was sent for. She was at his side when the end came at 9:40 o'clock. Senator Taylor is survived by his widow, a don David Taylor and three married daughters in Tennessee. He was stricken March 15 at the Union Station as he was about to board a train for North Carolina. He was hurried to his apartments suffering intense pain from gall stones. (Corner of column missing) ?? dling Bob" Taylor was so ???? because he played his ???? to the hearts of his audience ?? carrying his violin wherever he campaigned. He was born at Happy Valley, in Eastern Tennessee, but spent most of his life at Nashville practicing law. He belonged to an office holding family. His father was a representative in Congress and commissioner of Indian affairs, and an uncle was in the Confederate senate. Once pension against at Knoxville, thrice governor of Tennessee, from 1887 to 1891 and 1897 to 1899, Senator Taylor forged his way to the national House of Representatives from the same congressional district that had previously sent his father to Congress and later his brother, Alfred T. Taylor, whom he subsequently defeated for governor. With Taylor passes one of the most picturesque of the old school of statesmen. His was one of the political romances. When he was first elected to Congress, he accomplished the task by speaking in the daytime and fiddling at Tennessee mountaineer dances at night. His swing around the country was on a spotted pony. All his years in Congress made him none the less a mountaineer. He loved fried chicken better than a hound loves possum scraps. He drank his whiskey straight and he raised his hat to every woman he met. He could play the fiddle as no one else in the mountains, could ride a horse bareback and follow the hounds until the horn blew for breakfast the next day. He could give an oration full of reference to the mountains and the rivers, the valleys and the sky, the sunshine and the flowers, the starts that twinkle above and the grass that grew beneath and the men who licked the British at King's Mountain. And when he wasn't fiddling at the dances he was cutting the pigeon wing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------- If you can add date of birth or death or a Barry County Connection to this obituary please Email Susan Return to Online Data Index Return to Barry County © 1999 Susan Tortorelli All Rights Reserved