Baxter
Taylor, 1901 and in the 1930s
He must have been reading law at this time at Cumberland
College, on a holiday excursion to Andrew Jackson's Hermitage near Nashville.
The handwriting--"At the Shrine of Democracy"--is his own, though I think
the date was added later by my father. Other members of the party
mull about, including a young lady on the steps. Baxter seems ready for
whatever awaits him, hopeful and determined.
A campaign card that didn't work.
He was highly respected--and employed by other politicians such as
Alfalfa Bill Murray, who praised him for his honesty--but his campaign
for congress failed. He made no other forays into politics, to my
knowledge, practicing law while cultivating a few crops on his three acres
at the southern edge of Oklahoma City, on Shields Boulevard. In those
days there was a streetcar line running along Shields Boulevard, from downtown
Oklahoma City to Moore. He would ride this streetcar to his law office
in the Petroleum Building. He took an avid interest in politics the
rest of his life, was fiercely partisan, a Democrat to the death like his
Uncle Bob. He grew a little corn, kept a cow and hogs, had an apple
orchard. For years, Love made butter from a churn and wrung the necks of
chickens for Sunday dinners. She longed for city life, and at last,
when Baxter became ill in the late fifties, moved him to a city neighborhood,
convenient to the Presbyterian church.
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