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Collection Number: 04994

Collection Title: Elizabeth Herbert Smith Taylor Diaries (#4994) 1918-1979

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Size 12 v. (1.5 linear feet)
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.
Creator Taylor, Elizabeth Herbert Smith, b. 1888.
Curatorial Unit Southern Historical Collection
Language English.
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Restrictions to Access
No restrictions. Open for research.
Copyright Notice
Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], in the Elizabeth Herbert Smith Taylor Diaries #04994, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Provenance
Received from Claiborne T. Smith of Ardmore, Pa., in April 1995 (Acc. 95047).
Sensitive Materials Statement
Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.
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The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

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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).

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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.

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Contents list

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Diaries, 1918-1979.

12 volumes.

Arrangement: chronological.

Diaries of Elizabeth Herbert Smith Taylor contain brief entries noting events of 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.

The first diary begins on 7 September 1918 with a notation that it was given to her by Adele and Walter Guion. 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, writing that "we are 1st class traveling steerage. Danced on the deck in the rain." On the voyage, she wrote about seasickness among the nurses and about the weather. After she arrived, she wrote about working and living conditions and about dances and social occasions.

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.

Nursing is occasionally mentioned, but never described in detail. In fact, it is often not easy to discern where she is working or for whom. It appears that she went to Poland in January 1920 to work as a nurse and returned to the United States in August of the same year. In December 1922, she apparently went to work in Devett's Camp in Pennsylvania and returned to North Carolina in September 1923. She went to work in Texas in October 1923 and returned to North Carolina in March 1924. She went to Guatemala in July 1927.

In Guatemala, in May 1928, Elizabeth Herbert Smith met Kempton Potter Aiken Taylor, a doctor, whom she married in October 1928. It appears that Dr. Taylor was in the Navy and that they lived in Guatemala, Panama, and Cuba, returning each summer to visit their families in the United States. Beginning in October 1944, they appear to have moved to Florida.

Folder 1

1918-1922

Folder 2

1923

Folder 3

1924

Folder 4

1925-1929

Folder 5

1930-1934

Folder 6

1935-1939

Folder 7

1940-1944

Folder 8

1945-1949

Folder 9

1950-1954

Folder 10

1954-1959

Folder 11

1960-1964

Folder 12

1975-1979

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