Floris May Bringedahl Taylor

March 30, 1925 – October 9, 2017

   Floris Bringedahl Taylor passed away, on Monday, October 9th, 2017, at the age of 92, at Belleview Heights, in Aurora Colorado,  

   She was born in the heart of Detroit Michigan, on March 30th, 1925, to Norwegian immigrants, Dewey and “Dagne” Bringedahl.  After graduating from high school there, Floris attended secretarial school before deciding to further her education at Wheaton College in Illinois.  It was there that she met her future husband, Robert (Bob) Bartley Taylor, who she married in Detroit on June 10, 1949. 

    Floris was an energetic, giving, and devoted wife and mother.  Throughout Bob’s master’s and doctoral programs, entailing multiple relocations, she worked closely and cheerfully by his side.  When Bob was hospitalized with polio, Floris carried on with her active toddler, Mark, and a daughter, Linnea, due 13 months after Mark was born.  As soon as Bob recuperated, they left Wheaton for Eugene, Oregon, then Albuquerque, New Mexico where she helped Bob with his master’s work--typing and preparing his thesis manuscripts.

   One of the greatest challenges Floris met was the year she and Bob packed up everything they owned and drove down to Southern Mexico to live among the Zapotec people of Oaxaca.  To know a culture is to live and participate in their lives, and that Floris did!  Setting up a one-room adobe house-hold complete with an out-house, she boiled water from the well, and stepped on any scorpions when called by her two rambunctious preschoolers.  She paid visits to various women to get cooking advice and supplies.  Despite making sure the family took all precautions, Floris and later, 4-year-old Linnea, came down with both Malaria and Typhoid simultaneously. But that was the easy part.  The hard part was, she quipped, explaining to her visiting mom and dad just exactly what she was doing in that place! 

   Floris took up many hobbies with relish.  Most prominent were knitting, teaching others how to knit, designing knitted clothing and household items, sewing, needlepoint, color design, decorating, music, floral arrangement, reading, gardening, and bird watching.  After retirement, she and Bob went on many treks all over the country, to see various birds in their own habitat. (This “dove-tailed” nicely with trips to visit family scattered across the United States.)   

   She loved music and shared this gift freely at the mission, her churches, and at home.  A joyous soprano, Floris sang in the various church choirs that they were a part of, and frequently lent her piano skills to activities in her community. 

    Having worked for a year in an inner-city street mission in her early days in Detroit, Floris developed an interest in missions.  This interest was matched by Bob’s, and their home was always open to missionaries (visitors, or those on furlough).  She loved Christ, and lived her out her faith --with Bob-- in every aspect of her life.

       Floris and her growing family lived in Manhattan Kansas from 1957-1991, attending Trinity Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, and contributing her many talents of teaching, crafting, and helping Bob. Vocational pursuits included: working in the Manhattan Kansas Yarn shop, and Mary Kay Cosmetics, prior to moving to Las Cruces, after Bob’s retirement from teaching at Kansas State in 1991. In Las Cruces, N.M. they lived 22 years at the Good Samaritan Apartment Complex, where their church home was First Presbyterian Church.  Floris and Bob moved one final time in 2012, settling in Aurora Colorado, to be nearer family.  Floris’ husband, Bob, passed away on June 4th, 2016, in Aurora, after 66 years of marriage. Their loving care of each other, inspired many, and after Bob’s passing, Floris’ own faith, humor, and courage sustained her, as she waged a long battle with dementia.

    She is survived by a sister, Borghild and (Bill) Krohg, of Minneapolis, MN, her three children: son, Mark Taylor and (Anne Joh,) of Chicago Illinois, and daughters, Linnea Taylor and (Michael Johnston) of Ventura California, and Gwen and (Dave) Jorgensen of Aurora, Colorado.  She also leaves ten grandchildren, and seven great grandchildren.

    In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in memory of Floris Bringedahl Taylor to the Dementia Society of America by mail to PO Box 600, Doylestown, PA 18901, or online at:  http://www.DementiaSociety.org/donate

For the obituary for Robert Taylor, click here.

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