Amy Taylor

Amy Corazza Lance Taylor, 98, of Aiken, SC died peacefully on Wednesday August 23rd in North Augusta, SC of complications from a stroke. She lived a long life filled with joy and challenge and the love of so many near and far. She was strong and brave and, above all, loving and giving and kind to family, adopted family, friends and strangers alike. She was born in Freeland, PA in 1918, to a family of eight children and raised by her strong mother and beloved older brothers when her father died young during the Depression. Due to the generosity of her brother Bill, she was able to attend nursing school in Philadelphia and earned an RN. During World War II she planned to volunteer for the military, but she stayed a civilian when her mother, who already had five sons overseas, begged her to stay in the US. She took a nursing job in Richland, WA, far from home in a place she had never seen, to work for the Hanford Project as part of the Manhattan Project. There she met her first husband, Robert Lance, from Gainesville, GA. They moved to Aiken, SC when he took a job with the start up of the Savannah River Plant in 1952. There they had the good fortune to find Whitney Drive, a small undeveloped dirt road where they and six other Savannah River Plant families built houses and became each other’s extended families. Bob Lance died in 1963. She raised three children on her own until she married James Taylor III in 1967. They lived happily together at Whitney Drive until his death in 2001, and she continued to make Whitney Drive her home. She was a nurse, builder, gardener, parent and grandparent for her family and community. She coached basketball teams, played a mean game of bridge especially as a member of the “Elegant Eight” bridge club of dear friends, sang in the choir of the First Presbyterian Church, became an expert in swimming pool maintenance and a late in life student of the drums who played in a pretty good family band. She loved hosting annual Fourth of July and Christmas Eve parties for a widening circle of family and friends and countless breakfasts, dinners and cocktail hours filled with hilarity and great discussions. Amy was beloved by her children and in laws Linda Lance and Kirk Victor of Washington, DC, Bill Lance and Carol Mark of Ridgefield, CT, Robert and Lynda Lance of North Augusta, SC, Laura and Mark Munson of Edmonds, WA, and Claire and Bill Prior of Richmond, VA. She was delighted by her beloved grandchildren Eric Lance, Lisa Wren Krentz, Emily Munson Mayhle, Will Munson, Corey Boyer, Ford Prior, Morgan Prior; great-grandchildren, Clara and Maxine Padgett, Amelia and Billy Boyer, Thaddeus Prior and Dalylah and Robert Munson.  Her family also included the Whitney Drive kids – Marianne Mowry, Ann, John and Pete Bebbington, Lisa and Brad Kuhn, Frank, Chub and Charwin Harmstead, David and Melinda Glasgow, and Mary and Phil Porter and her “adopted kids” Ann Herring, Kathy Cunningham, Beth Hawthorne, and grandson Paden Herring. Memorials may be made in memory of Amy to the charity of your choice. The family is so grateful to very special people Delores Berry, Latonya Hicks and Shirley Young and to the staff at NHC Health Care who have cared for and loved Amy and her family. A memorial service will be held at 3:00 PM, September 30, 2017 at First Presbyterian Church in Aiken, SC with a reception following the service in the church fellowship hall. SHELLHOUSE FUNERAL HOME, INC., 924 HAYNE AVE., AIKEN, SC Mrs. Taylor’s online guest book may be signed at www.shellhousefuneralhome.com To order memorial trees or send flowers to the family in memory of Amy Taylor, please visit our flower store.