George Lindley Taber was born in Vassalboro, Maine, on October 18, 1854, to George and Esther Pope Taber. He attended Oak Grove Seminary in Vassalboro and the Moses Brown Friends School in Providence, Rhode Island before moving to Chicago to work as a stockbroker for the Chicago Board of Trade.
In 1881, when Taber was 27, his doctor diagnosed him with a “weakened heart”1 and advised him to move to a more temperate region if he wished to survive. Shortly after, Taber took the train South to Florida.
Taber served as the nursery’s president and treasurer until he retired in 1920. He was the “active promoter, the man in the field, in the office, and in the commercial world for these many years.”2 In addition to running the nursery, Taber was a member of several horticultural organizations in Florida. In 1887, he helped establish the Florida State Horticultural Society, an organization dedicated to growing and studying plants.3 Taber was elected secretary in 1888, vice-president in 1891, president in 1897, and later honorary member. He was also involved in the American Pomological Society, an organization interested primarily in the cultivation of fruit.
Taber is remembered as a “tall, large, and handsome man with a hearty laugh that was often heard throughout the nursery.”4 Taber was "tall" indeed – a striking six foot four inches. He earned everyone’s “great respect,” he was “fair and honest in all he accomplished, and he engendered great loyalty from friends and employees." 5
On November 28, 1883, Taber married Gertrude St. John from Kent, Connecticut. They had no children, and she died of an illness in July 1903. In November 1905, Taber remarried a woman from Boston named Mildred (“Millie”) Willey. Millie had been attending medical school at Boston University School of Medicine, one of the first co-ed medical schools in the United States.6 At the turn of the century, eighteen percent of physicians in areas like Boston were women.7 Millie left school and her anticipated career to move to the nursery. A year later, on December 27, 1906, their son George Lindley Taber Jr. was born.
Taber retired in 1920 and died in 1929 at the age of 74. His son named the George Lindley Taber Azalea in his honor.
- Only Copeland and Armitage mention that Taber’s illness was due to heart issues; all other sources merely state that he was ill.
- Quotation from “The Glen Saint Mary Nurseries, of Florida” pp. 151
- Some sources claim that Taber was charter member, secretary, vice-president, and president of the Florida State Horticultural Society (“The Glen Saint Mary Nurseries, of Florida” 151, Miller 3, Moser 170) while another claims that he served in those same roles at the same time in the Florida Nurseryman’s Association (“NRHPRF” sec. 8 pp 2). He may have done both, but there is also a chance that the sources confused the names of the various organizations, and it is more likely that he only served in those roles for the Florida State Horticultural Society. “George L. Taber,” the 1907 article from The National Nurseryman writes that he was vice-president of Florida’s chapter of the American Association of Nurserymen.
- Quotation from Copeland and Armitage pp. 173.
- Quotations from Copeland and Armitage pp. 174.
- "History."
- Morantz, pp. 163.
