Essie Yolanda Taylor was born in Chicago, Illinois at Cook County Hospital on November 2, 1964.

She passed on August 5, 2024 after almost two decades of battling with severe diseases associated scleroderma.

Essie grew up on the South Side of Chicago and in grade school, she was a talkative, curious and outgoing student with good grades.

She loved to help her mother, father and oldest sister Lafronn (Pam) organize their home and her other siblings including Othello, Laura, Dubois and Marius, the baby of the family. Othello is her older brother, but she often tried to organize him too. Some of her siblings called her "mother", her oldest sister Lafronn was "mother number two".

She spent a lot of time as a young child, playing in the large home of her father's parents Colbert and Essie Mae Taylor, who lived on the South Side of Chicago.

When she was a little older, she spent some summers in Pickens, MS where her mother's parents, Walter and Estella Pluma Doty lived. She and her siblings enjoyed idyllic days of playing with cousins and neighbors and eating delicious exotic food like "roshunells", roasted ears of corn, and "maypops", passion fruits. Eventually, she would figure out what to call the food she was eating. More culture shock from being new to the South, was even more names for everyday items, for example "carport" a concrete porch, often with a wooden awning, used for parking vehicles on, and "davenport" a couch.

She laughed with me a lot about cultural differences between the north and south, in America. Essie was baptized at Haven of Rest Baptist Church on Chicago's South Side as a young child along with two of her siblings Laura and Dubois. She attended that church for several years.

Essie went on to attend South Shore High School in Chicago, and had excellent grades, excelling at science and math. She participated in "Pom Poms" also called cheerleading, for the school's sports teams. She also enjoyed the debate club, art classes and music studies.

She graduated from high school and attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she majored in Biology and studied to become a research scientist.

Later in life, Essie left school and went on adventures all over the Southwestern states of America with different friends. She'd send home pictures of herself on mountains, cliffs, in fields of flowers, and posing in front of airplanes. She'd return home to Chicago and amaze our family with tales of moose, bears, eagles and purple mountains. Skydiving, horseback riding, motorcycle riding lessons and motorcycle riding injuries. And sightseeing and hiking. And rock concerts and celebrity sightings. She also traveled to London and enjoyed another culture shock. Everyone had an accent. She was informed by Britains that she had an accent, too. She loved to experience new environments, cultures and people.

And she had a good time. And she worked and worked to support her travels and adventures. So many jobs. She waitressed at restaurants. She shipped packages at Amazon. She worked for temporary agencies doing different types of clerical work. She did proctoring, editing, and proofreading. She worked as an Administrative Assistant to a technical writer at a video game company, where she proofread scripts for the video game Mortal Kombat-Deadly Alliance. She was a secretary for a construction company at McCormick Place, and hooked her sister Laura up with a job as a construction worker sweeping and doing demolition. And got her brother Marius a job at that same construction site working with the carpenters. She worked at Northwestern University School of Law as an Executive Secretary/Administrative Assistant to the Dean of the School of Law. She also worked for Northwestern Memorial Hospital as an Administrative Assistant to the retiring Vice President of Cardiology, and assisted in the preparation for the new incoming VP of Cardiology. Not knowing at the time that she would get the kidney transplant she would need later at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

She needed a kidney transplant because she was diagnosed with scleroderma in her late forties, after five years of puzzling illnesses. The kidney transplant helped her live a more normal life and battle the scleroderma. And she fought a glorious battle with God's help. She went into remission from the scleroderma. She went back to work and chose Evanston/Skokie School District 65. She worked at Dawes School in Evanston for about two years as an Administrative Assistant. Some of her associates at Dawes School, Natalie Doebler with the PTA and Lauren Valverde Evanston/Skokie School District 65 in Human Resources, described her with very loving words: so kind, patient, a heart of gold. They both told me that she would truly be missed.

She contracted Covid-19 and pneumonia in late December of 2023 and recovered. She transferred from St. Joseph Hospital to Northwestern Hospital and tragically she had somehow become infected with brain abscesses. "Possibly from dirty water?" one doctor said. She also developed a lung infection and seizures after the brain surgeries to remove the brain abscesses. Essie kept fighting. She healed. She was discharged from Northwestern Hospital and went to rehab. We were ecstatic! But she developed other issues because of the scleroderma and was hospitalized again. She was up and down after that for almost a year. I called her "the come-back kid". My Aunts called her "a fighter".

Essie our brave hero, warrior, our tiger. She fought a long battle against disease and now she's finished. Her journey is over. No more suffering.

We'll miss her humor. She was so much fun. So funny. A creative artist, using oils on canvas. Her beauty. A stunning woman to see. Her ability to lead. Her understanding. We love her so.

Essie is survived by a husband, David Wayne Fox. A son, Jon Green. Her family also includes, Parents: Hugh Taylor (deceased ) and Charlene Smith, also her Stepfather: Robert Smith (deceased). Grandparents: (father's parents) Colbert and Essie Mae Taylor, both deceased, (mother's parents) Walter and Estella Pluma Doty, both deceased.

Siblings first, listed with their spouses: Lafronn (sister deceased) and Michael Perry, Othello (brother) and Melinda Taylor, Laura Regina Taylor (sister), Dubois (brother) and Equoia Taylor, Marius Julian Smith (brother) and Shannon Millikin. Aunts and Uncles from father's family, listed first, with their spouses: Charles Edward (uncle deceased) and Margaret Jean Taylor, Madora (aunt) and Cliotis Daniels, both deceased, Ella Louise (aunt deceased) and Fred Reedy, Eula Taylor (aunt), Iola Bernice Taylor (aunt). Uncle: from mother's family, George Washington (deceased).

Essie also has cousins and other relatives who will miss her so much and love her dearly.

Written by Laura Regina Taylor.

In Lieu of Flowers please make donations to:

https://www.covenanthouse.org/