Annie Medora (Taylor) Richardson, 1856-1902
Until I was looking through some family photographs recently, I didn’t realize that the sweet little collar pin I’ve had for my entire life – well, for as long as I remember – came from my great-grandmother Annie Medora (Taylor) Richardson. She was my mother’s mother’s mother, and though I never knew her, she left me quite a legacy.
She was born October 30, 1856, at Frankfort, Kentucky, the daughter of Captain Richard and Rachael Medora (Pryor) Taylor. After the defeat of the Confederacy, she went with her family to Mexico City where she was raised in genteel poverty and with strong antebellum attitudes.
According to the family story, Annie Medora swore that she would never marry “a short man, a blond man, or a damnyankee.” However, young Daniel Richardson, a Californian attached to the American Consulate in Mexico City, had all three characteristics. She married him anyway on May 1, 1876, in Mexico City.
She had first been named Annie Maria, but was given the name Medora on the death of her infant sister, Medora Law – a commonplace sort of name change in the days of high infant mortality. Had that change not occurred, I would probably be Sydney Maria rather than Sydney Medora, for it was through Annie Medora (and her mother Rachael Medora) that my grandmother became Helen Medora and I, in turn, am Sydney Medora.
And then there are her ears. Huge and sticky-outie. Mine aren’t quite so sail-like, but there is definitely a resemblance, although I have to admit that my great-grandmother on the Espy side also had ears to reckon with. I dutifully passed those ears on to my son.
Annie Medora’s first-born, my grandmother, was barely eight months old when her Grandfather Horace Richardson died and Daniel had to leave his diplomatic post in Mexico City and return to San Francisco with his young family to care for his unmarried sisters. Annie Medora did not find the Bay Area to her liking. She found the customs barbarous and the social affairs around which life revolved, boring. She much preferred the cocoon of Southern gentility in which she had been raised – with a few Mexican bullfights thrown in for excitement.
For the rest of her life, her heart’s home remained south of the border. When General Diaz fell ill at the time President Garfield was shot, Annie Medora’s whole concern was for the sick Mexican leader. Even though the Richardson relatives drew her a family tree to show that Garfield was her husband’s sixth cousin once removed, she could not have cared whether he lived or died.
Both her loyalties and sensibilities remained Southern. She taught her eldest daughter to arrange flowers, to set a fine table, and to cook fancy desserts. The less attractive aspects of housekeeping were left to the servants. When my grandmother married and came to Oysterville as a young woman, she was ill-equipped to lead the life of a (servant-less) farmer’s wife. But she managed it for fifty-seven years. Perseverance, after all, is the close cousin of loyalty – another legacy from Annie Medora.
Like so many in pictures of that time she doesn’t appear to be having a good time. How sad for her that she was forever dissatisfied with her surroundings! I am glad that you did not inherit THAT from her! But how wonderful that you’ve solved yet another mystery as a historical sleuth. I have a color pin I inherited from my grandmother and perhaps her mother as well. I will probably never know, but will re-examin family photos!
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