Taylor, Sallie Blackwell Sharp, 1911-

Sallie Blackwell Sharp Taylor was born Sallie Blackwell Sharp on 21 December 1911 to James Merritt Sharp and Annie Britt Blackwell Sharp. She was one of seven children who survived to adulthood, including Susie Marshall, Annie Hill, Thomas Adolphus ( Tommy ), Louise Wortham, Florence Abigail, and James Vance ( Kits ). She was lived in Reidsville, N.C., until she left to attend the North Carolina College for Women (now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro). Sallie was an avid violinist, and a large part of her studies at the Women's College involved her musical training. Upon graduating from college in May 1933, Sallie took a position as instructor of violin at the North Carolina State School for the Blind and Deaf in Raleigh, N.C., where she lived and worked for one year.

Sallie's sister, Susie Marshall Sharp, of Reidsville, N.C., was elected chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court in 1974, becoming the first woman elected chief justice of a state supreme court in the United States.

Lawrence Arthur Taylor, generally known as Arthur, was born 17 February 1905. Taylor graduated from North Carolina State College (now North Carolina State University) in Raleigh, N.C. in the 1920s and worked for several years at the Montgomery Ward store in Reidsville, N.C., where he met Sallie Blackwell Sharp. He was later transferred to Hammond, Ind., and then to Holland, Mich., where he was the manager of the Montgomery Ward store.

Sallie Blackwell Sharp Taylor and Lawrence Arthur Taylor began dating in November of 1932. On 21 June 1935 they were married at the Sharp home in Reidsville, N.C.