Alice Margaret Taylor Snow

SNOW Alice Margaret Taylor Alice Margaret Taylor Snow, 96, of West Lafayette, Indiana, formerly of Toledo, Ohio, and Naples, Florida, died Wednesday, April 1, 2009, at Cumberland Pointe Health Campus (formerly George Davis Manor) in West Lafayette. Alice was born October 31, 1912, in Hedgesville, Wheatland County, Montana. Her parents, Ossian and Elizabeth Fraser Taylor, had gone west from Maine to settle in Montana. Alice graduated from Missoula County High School in 1929 and from the University of Montana in 1933. She was president of her sorority, Kappa Kappa Gamma; a member of the undergraduate scholastic honorary; and active in drama. Alice taught at the Billings Polytechnic Institute where she met and married fellow faculty member, Wayne Edwin Snow, a North Carolina native, on January 5, 1934. Wayne became involved in development work for the school, which took them from Montana to Toledo, Ohio. When the depression economy overtook that effort, they found other jobs and made Toledo their home. During World War II, Wayne joined the navy and Alice worked for Packard as an inspector on the assembly line, building aircraft engines. Alice was active in many organizations including First Congregational Church, her sorority alumnae group, Parent Teacher Association, Mothers' Club, Community Chest (United Way), Mothers' March on Polio, Toledo Writers' Club, and the writers' group of AAUW. Alice returned to teaching in 1958 after spending more than a decade focused on their children and volunteer activities. She earned her M.A. at the University of Toledo in 1964, and her Ohio Reading Certification at Bowling Green State University in 1970. Alice's teaching career at Scott High School was rich with innovation. She drew on her own interest in creative writing and set up a course in the curriculum that brought a number of literary awards for her students. She instigated the first experimental reading improvement classes at the high school level and for a time chaired the English Department. She was a member of professional education groups and president of the local chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma. When Alice's husband, Wayne turned his long time avocation into a vocational calling by creating NIFTI (Neighborhood Improvement Foundation of Toledo, Inc.), a not-for-profit neighborhood revitalization organization, Alice was very supportive of this bold unique contribution to Toledo's civic well-being. Later in their lives, Alice and Wayne enjoyed their ties with rural Hudson, Michigan, and their retirement years in Naples, Florida, and in West Lafayette for Alice. In Naples Alice supported the Southwestern Florida Symphony Association and the Big Cypress Center. In West Lafayette, she was a member of First United Methodist Church, volunteered at the Lafayette Adult Resource Academy, and kept in shape at the YWCA. She was an enthusiastic sports fan and enjoyed Purdue Boilermaker football and basketball. She was preceded in death by her husband, Wayne in 1989 and by her sister, Ossia Taylor Kearns (husband, James). She is survived by two children, Elizabeth Alice Snow Solberg (husband, James, West Lafayette), Randolph Edgar Snow (wife, Jennifer, Bonita Springs, Florida); two adult grandchildren, Kirsten K. Solberg (Boston) and Margaret E. Solberg Batchelor (husband, Jason, Denver); her precious "little ones," great- granddaughter, Greta Alice Batchelor; grandson, Nicholas Taylor Snow and granddaughter, Charlotte Mackenzie Snow and beloved Kearns, MacKenzie, and Snow family members. The celebration of a wonderful person will be held on Saturday, April 25th, at 4:00 p.m., with the Reverend Daniel Berger, at the Soller-Baker West Lafayette Chapel, 1184 Sagamore Parkway West. Visitation will be from 3:00-4:00 p.m. before the remembrance gathering. Burial at the Ottawa Hills Memorial Park Cemetery will be this summer. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to First Congregational Church or the University of Toledo.