Elizabeth Herbert Smith Taylor Diaries Inventory (#4994)
Manuscripts Department, Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Contact Information:
- Manuscripts Department
- CB#3926, Wilson Library
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Chapel Hill, NC 27514-8890
- Phone: 919/962-1345
- Fax: 919/962-3594
- Email: mss@email.unc.edu
- URL: http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/
- Processed by
- Linda Sellars
- Date Completed
- October 1999
- Encoded by
- Linda Sellars
Back to Top
Descriptive Summary Including Abstract
- Title
- Elizabeth Herbert Smith Taylor Diaries (#4994) 1918-1979
- Creator
- Taylor, Elizabeth Herbert Smith, b. 1888.
- Extent
-
- 12 v. (1.5 linear feet)
- Repository
- Southern Historical Collection
- Abstract
- Elizabeth Herbert Smith Taylor (b. 1888) of Scotland Neck, N.C., was a nurse in France during World War I, and later in several locations in the United States and abroad. She married Kempton Potter Aiken Taylor, a physician, in 1928. Diaries, 1918-1979, of Elizabeth Herbert Smith Taylor contain brief entries noting events in her life, especially her travel and social activities. Most of the volumes are five-year diaries with only four or five lines written for each day. Frequent subjects of diary entries are the weather, books read, visits, letters written and received, health, chores, and church attendance. After her marriage in 1928, there are frequent comments on her husband's actions or attitudes. The first diary begins on 7 September 1918. A nurse during World War I, on 8 September, she embarked for France as a member of the Maguire Unit of the Army Nurse Corps. In France, she wrote about working and living conditions and about dances and social occasions. Nursing is occasionally mentioned, but never described in detail. It appears that she worked in Poland in 1920, in Pennsylvania in 1922, and in Texas in 1923, returning to North Carolina after each job. In 1927, she met her husband while working in Guatemala. The couple seems to have lived in Panama and Cuba, finally settling in Florida in 1944.
Administrative Information
- Usage Restrictions
- Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Online Catalog Terms
- Diaries--North Carolina--History--20th century.
- Family--North Carolina--Social life and customs--20th century.
- Nurses--North Carolina--Diaries.
- Nurses--North Carolina--History--20th century.
- Taylor, Elizabeth Herbert Smith, b. 1888.
- Taylor, Kempton Potter Aiken, b. 1893.
- United States. Army Nurse Corps.
- Women--North Carolina--Diaries.
- Women--North Carolina--Diaries.
- Women travelers--History.
- World War, 1914-1918--War work.
- World War, 1914-1918--Women.
Biographical Note
Elizabeth Herbert Smith (b. 4 Aug. 1888) was the eighth of ten children of Virginia Peterson Cocke (1850-1905) and William Edward Smith (1845?-1893) of Scotland Neck, N.C. Her siblings were William Edward Smith (b. 1875), who married Juliette Riddick Hatton; Nathaniel Colley Cocke Smith (1877-1935); James Norfleet Smith (1879-1962), who married Elizabeth Hyman; Anne (Nannie) Hayes Smith (b. 1881), who married Fred Guion and lived in New York City; Francis (Frank) Robert Smith (1883-1930), who lived in California, 1905-1910; Adelaide (Adele) Evans Smith (b. 1884), who married Albert Brown and lived for many years in Port Arthur, Tex., before returning to North Carolina; Charles Harrison Cocke Smith (b. 1886), who married Lucille Carroll; Susan Hines Smith (b. 1890), called Hines, who married Samuel Otho Jones and lived in Newport News, Va.; and Claiborne Thweatt Smith (1893- ), who married Bertha Sears Albertson.
Elizabeth Herbert Smith was educated at Woman's College in Greensboro, N.C., and completed nurse's training at St. Timothy's Hospital in Philadelphia, Pa. During World War I, she served in the Maguire Unit of the Army Nurse Corps and was sent to France. She worked, January-August 1920, with the Red Cross in Poland during a typhus epidemic. At other times, she worked as a nurse in Pennsylvania, Texas, and Guatemala.
In Guatemala in 1928, Elizabeth Herbert Smith met Dr. Kempton Potter Aiken Taylor of Philadelphia. Taylor was the brother of poet Conrad Aiken and the adopted son of Frederick Winslow Taylor, the "father of scientific management." On 24 October 1928, Smith and Taylor were married in Trinity Church in Scotland Neck, N.C. After their marriage, the Taylors lived in Cuba and Panama. After Dr. Taylor's retirement, the couple lived in Clearwater, Fla. (according to information from the donor, their nephew).
Back to TopCollection Overview
Diaries, 1918-1979, of Elizabeth Herbert Smith Taylor contain brief entries noting events in her life, especially her travel and social activities. Most of the volumes are five-year diaries with only four or five lines written for each day. Frequent subjects of diary entries are the weather, books read, visits, letters written and received, health and health of friends and relatives, chores, and church attendance. After her marriage in 1928, there are frequent comments on actions or attitudes of her husband, Kempton Potter Aiken Taylor. The first diary begins on 7 September 1918. A nurse during World War I, on 8 September, she embarked for France as a member of the Maguire Unit of the Army Nurse Corps. In France, she wrote about working and living conditions and about dances and social occasions. Nursing is occasionally mentioned, but never described in detail. It appears that she worked in Poland in 1920, in Pennsylvania in 1922, and in Texas in 1923, returning to North Carolina after each job. In 1927, she met her husband while working in Guatemala. The couple lived in Panama and Cuba, finally settling in Florida in 1944.
Back to Top
Description
Back to Top