Russiaville, IN - Richard Joseph Taylor Sr and his wife Nancy Lee Taylor (Gibbon), having travelled widely in life, will be laid to eternal rest in Crown Point Cemetery at 10:30 am on July 8, 2026, with Pastor Matt Swisher officiating, and military honors provided by the Kokomo VFW Military Rites Team.

Known as Dick since he was a boy, Richard was a native of Russiaville like his ancestors. His forefathers are George (1730s), Joseph (1782), George H. (1800), Ralph (1842), Richard (1874), and George H. (1907). Joseph moved the family from Virginia to Indiana in the 1820s. George H. was active in Honey Creek township government during the Underground Railroad era. Ralph joined the 5th Indiana Cavalry in 1862 and survived the war into old age.

Dick was born August 17th, 1934 in the middle of the Great Depression and his father George did not survive it. This loss led Dick and his mother to leave Russiaville and move in with the Land family in Kokomo. There he went to high school, graduating 1952, and enlisted in the United States Navy. The Navy made him a fire control technician aboard the USS Baltimore and made good on its promise that he could see the world.

After completing his service he got a job with IBM and set out on another overseas adventure, this time repairing office machines for the Aramco oil company in Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia. This trip changed everything because there he met a girl from Maryland.

Nancy was born August 14th, 1940 in Washington DC. Her ancestors have been living on the Eastern Shore of Maryland since the mid 18th century. Her foremothers are Zepporah Bowen (1750s) Elizabeth Purnell (1790), Nancy Dryden (1815), Anne Howard (1846), Annie Bridell (1876), and Lelsie Powell (1906).

As a girl she lived on a small farm in Shelltown, and stayed with her aunt in Princess Anne while her parents went to Arabia on a work assignment. She travelled to visit them during the summers, and while working in an Aramco office met the young IBM man from Indiana.

After a while, Dick had engagement and wedding bands made by an Arab goldsmith that he had met in the local marketplace.

The two came back to the United States in 1959 and settled in Baltimore where they both attended college (he in engineering and she in pharmacy) and they married August 11th, 1962. Dick's engineering career took them to Columbus, Indiana where he enjoyed 30 years with Cummins Engine Company while Nancy worked in local pharmacies and at Columbus Regional Hospital.

Having grown up without siblings, they had thought to have four children but changed their minds after seeing the workload. They raised two boys (Richard and William) whom they taught to read from an early age, to love and care for a variety of animal companions, and to be good students of the world.

After leaving the workforce, Dick and Nancy enjoyed motorcycling trips ranging from short weekend outings to weeks-long excursions that took them to 49 U.S. states and 9 Canadian provinces. Beyond all travels and adventures their greatest joy in retirement was family, always treasuring visits from the sons they had sent forth into the world.

Dick had his reasons to leave Kokomo, but he also has his reasons to be back. He loved his Grandma Land who took such good care of him as a boy, and never forgot her. He made faithful visits until she died in 1979, and will now be buried in a Land family plot in a space right next to his own father.

Nancy, though she lived most of her adult life as a Midwesterner, always kept up visits to friends and family of the Eastern Shore/Chesapeake area. She is remembered there still.

The grave marker is decorated with a cardinal for Dick Taylor of Indiana, and an oriole for Nancy Gibbon of Maryland.