Wallace Creed " W.C." Taylor

W. C. Taylor of Lake Paradise, IL passed away on Wednesday, July 29, 2026. Per his request his remains will be cremated. A memorial service in his honor will be held at a later date. Mitchell-Jerdan Funeral Home, 1200 Wabash Avenue, Mattoon, IL 61938 is in charge of arrangements. Wallace Creed Taylor (a.k.a. Wally or W.C.) was born on September 18, 1930, the son of Frank and Winnie Taylor of rural Altamont, specifically Dexter corner. Due to economic times, like many others, he was called a "depression baby." When arriving into the world, he also arrived into Shakespeare's stages of man-these being seven. The first was "The infant mewling and puking in the mother's arms." Surviving the maladies of childhood- the whooping cough, the measles, the common cold, stomach aches, earaches, etc., he entered into the Bard's second stage of man, that being "the whining schoolboy with his satchel and shining morning face creeping like a snail unwilling to school". However, Wallace was not the unwilling schoolboy, but he rather enjoyed, generally speaking, the near-mile-and-a-half walk to Devore School south of Keptown. With other neighborhood kids he made the trek fall, winter, and spring for eight years and more than once received a gold star at school year's end for not missing a day. Both the classroom and recess were enjoyed with perhaps the latter being the more of the two. A woods bordered the playground and woe to the student who did not get back to the classroom on time when the bell rang. Recess in winter with the snow on the ground would be filled with a game called Fox and Goose. Other times, snowball "fights" were in vogue. One soon learned that a snowball held under the spigot on the school yard pump became not just a snowball but a missile. Winter's end would bring spring recesses of softball and basketball games, with the baskets nailed to trees. And then the last day of school when parents brought lots of food to celebrate and welcome in four months of summer fun. Country kids only went eight months to school and got out a month early to supposedly help on the farm. However, Wallace and the other boys became not farmers but Tom Sawyers and Huck Finns for those long "hazy, crazy, days of summer" of running the woods, bird hunting, berry picking, pond and creek swimming, swimming in gravel pits (unbeknownst to parents) finding farmers' melon patches in their corn fields and remembering same when fall arrived, and spotting a small cedar tree which would become a Christmas tree. For him it was truly a time of "ignorant bliss." It was a time of basically having nothing, but yet having summer-long freedom, made nothing everything. Nevertheless, since only "change" is concrete, his schoolboy stage gave way to "the stage of the lover sighing like a furnace with woeful ballad made to his mistress' eyebrow." In this stage he married Diane Allspach, of Macon County whom he met when they were both working in Caterpillar's IBM Department in 1956. The couple was married in December 1957, by the Reverend Schneider of Mt. Zion's Methodist Church. However, Shakespeare's next stage that "of the soldier full of strange oaths…" actually preceded the above stage. Because of the Korean Conflict, W.C. joined the Navy for a four-year enlistment. Following Boot camp and radio school in San Diego, he served on a minesweeper, the U.S.S. Endicott, DMS-35, off the northeast coast of Korea in '51 & '52. Due to engagements with enemy shore batteries and the Endicott's being hit on two different occasions, he received two battle stars. Wally's military career ended with an honorable discharge after fulfilling his four-year enlistment. The military time was followed by Shakespeare's fifth state that of "the justice--- full of wise saws and modern instances, and so he played his part." Perhaps Wallace, now mostly "Mr. T." filled this stage with thirty-one years in the classroom. The first seven years were spent at Tower Hill High School. These years were followed by one year plus at a private two-year-college—Robert Morris at Carthage, Illinois. His final location was twenty-three years at Lake Land College. Having started teaching there in 1967, Lake Land's first year, made him a "plank owner," i.e. a sailor who is on a ship's first year at sea is called a "plank owner." At college he served in many capacities including classroom teaching, first Chairman of the English Division, and first Director of Liberal Studies, etc. He then came to his sixth stage where one "shifts into slippers and "sweat" pantaloons, spectacles on nose, shrunk shanks and manly voice turning into a childish treble." Like the other stages, he enjoyed the sixth one which took him to the final stage, "the scene that ends this strange eventful history is second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." However, before stage seven, the final stage, let us travel down a few side roads. One would be his continuing education after those eight two-room years. They were followed by four years at Altamont High School, followed by attaining a Certificate from Sparks Business College, Shelbyville, followed by a Bachelor's Degree from Illinois State University, followed by a Master's Degree from Eastern Illinois University, followed by post-graduate work at Western Illinois University. Upon retiring from Lake Land, he became affiliated with Central Texas College of Killeen, Texas, which had a contract with the U.S. Navy to teach college courses aboard surface warships. Teaching on eleven different ships took him to port visits on twenty-one different countries and islands. Walking on five different continents, he discovered his favorite ports of call were in Israel, Turkey, and Australia. Additionally, W.C. used to say that he did not want to live on-the-edge but wanted to live close enough to see it occasionally. As such, he made a two-mile high sky dive above the ground at Palatka, Florida. He Scuba dived to over sixty feet outside Montego Bay and off the coast of Negril, Jamaica. He also para-sailed at Negril and later took a glider ride above the north coast of Oahu as well as a hot air balloon ride above the family homestead at Lake Paradise. Furthermore, at the urging of his friend and colleague Bill Ozier, he learned to downhill snow ski. This learning resulted in a highlight of skiing the top of Jean Claude Killy's mountain (Tignes Mountain) in the French Alps near Grenoble, France. Wallace is survived by his sons, Jody Taylor and wife Marie of Macon, IL, Zack Taylor of Lake Paradise, IL, Jason Taylor and wife Myra of Lake Paradise, IL; eight grandchildren: Miki Taylor, Alana Taylor, Caleb Taylor, Emma Taylor, Gabe Taylor, Jesse Taylor, Ava Taylor and Zoe Taylor; three great- grandchildren: Henry and Matthew Gale of Fox River Grove, IL, Wyatt Kierbow of Statham, GA. He was preceded in death by one son, Alan Taylor and his wife Nancy; three brothers, Archie, Dale and Frank "Monk"; one sister, Virginia Evans. As mentioned earlier, Mr. Taylor desired his remains to be cremated. Thus we "pick up, fold our tents" and bid farewell to An Old Young Body. Memorial donations in his honor may be made to the Lake Land College Foundation, 5001 Lake Land Blvd., Mattoon, IL 61938. Please visit www.mitchell-jerdan.com or www.facebook.com/mitchelljerdanfuneralhome to light a virtual candle in his honor or share a memory with the family. Gone From my Sight I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze, and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her until she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says: “There! She’s gone!” Gone where? Gone from my sight – that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side, and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of her destination. Her diminished size is in me, and not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: “There! She’s gone!” there are other eyes that are watching for her coming; and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: “Here she comes!” And that is dying…

Tributes

Wallace Creed " W.C." Taylor

September 18, 1930 - July 29, 2026