Robert E. Taylor

AMHERST-Dr. Robert E. Taylor, 93, died February 27, 2013 inNorthampton, MA. He was born in Portland, OR on November 22, 1919to the late Dolph and Lula May (Nicholas) Taylor. Having fallen in lovewith Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables as a teenager, he determinedto master French, earning his BA from Reed College (’43) and his MAand Ph.D. from Columbia University (’51), specializing in 18th-centuryliterature. In between, he served in World War II as a navigator in the U.S.Army Air Corps, stationed in the South Pacific. He was an instructor atColumbia before becoming Associate Professor at New York University,then came to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst as Full Professorand Head of the then Department of Romance Languages in 1963. Herehe was able to build up the future Department of French and Italian, he andhis second wife Olga trying to create a congenial professional atmosphereby hosting elegant French dinner parties at their home for both local andvisiting scholars. In 1967 Dr. Taylor was awarded a knighthood in theFrench Government’s Order of the Academic Palms for services renderedto French culture. He retired in 1989. Predeceased by his parents, his firstwife, Naomi Ellen (Klatt), and their son, Thomas Robert, he leaves his second wife, Olga (Zazuliak) and their daughter, Anne-Marie Taylor. He wished for no ceremony. New England Funeral & Cremation Center, LLC 25 Mill St., Springfield, MA has been entrusted with the final arrangements. Visit www.nefcc.net