The Adoring Son-
Honoring They Father
Dr. Taylor built
one of the most
progressive and
reputable
psychiatric
hospitals on the
East Coast -
Taylor Manor
Hospital.
On a spring day in 1939, Dr. Irving J. Taylor’s future was laid out before him. That was the day the first-year medical student and his father, Isaac Taylor, a businessman and political force in Ellicott City, Md., toured a small psychiatric hospital that was up for sale. The next day, the senior Taylor plunked down a cool $35,000 for the hospital and 56 acres and made his 20-year-old son partner. “He thought that was my future rather than the furniture and jewelry business,” says Dr. Taylor, a March 1943 graduate of the school of medicine. He was right.
More than 50 years ago, Dr. Taylor built one of the most progressive and reputable psychiatric hospitals on the East Coast—Taylor Manor Hospital. He transformed the 12-bed facility from a small, country operation to a 204-bed hospital with 500 employees at its peak.
In 1953 under Dr. Taylor, Taylor Manor was the first hospital to use the drug Thorazine to treat patients. In 1966, Taylor Manor launched the first psychiatric hospital treatment program in Maryland designed for adolescents. Four years later, it developed a program for emotionally ill substance abusers. The hospital became well known for its annual symposiums, bringing in researchers from around the world to discuss major advances in the field of psychiatry. “I think we established an excellent reputation,” Dr. Taylor, 84, says. “The credibility of our name was very important to me and that has been good to this day.”
Even as a boy, Dr. Taylor knew there was something special about his father. A self-made man, Isaac Taylor grew up in Baltimore, dropped out of school in the sixth grade and sold newspapers to earn money. But he was intelligent and later went to optometry school. It was in Ellicott City that Isaac Taylor established himself as an optometrist and merchant. He operated a store that sold
jewelry, furniture, appliances and musical instruments. If you needed a guitar pick, a rug or rocking chair, you walked the cobblestone streets of downtown Ellicott City to Taylor’s Furniture Store.
The family lived upstairs on the third floor, and Dr. Taylor, his brother, Harold, and mother, Rose, assisted customers when Isaac Taylor took time out to eat dinner. The hours were long for the senior Taylor—7 a.m. to 11 p.m.
The Taylor family wasn’t only known for the store. Rose Taylor was involved in local charities, while Isaac Taylor helped organize the first Rotary club in the city, the first public library, and as president of the school board, he established the first school for African Americans in Howard County. “He was a person of action,” Dr. Taylor says.
Dr. Taylor made a name for himself, too. He was an excellent student, and he graduated valedictorian from his high school class and attended Johns Hopkins University at age 16. “I was so outclassed there,” Dr. Taylor says. “I felt like a small fish in a big pond.”
But he excelled and after graduating in 1939, attended medical school and became a doctor
four years later. While Dr. Taylor completed his residency and served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, Isaac Taylor worked as administrator at the hospital.
In 1949, Dr. Taylor was named the hospital’s medical director. He learned the business from the ground up. He lived at the hospital, cut the lawn, and met with the patients and their families. “I knew all of the patients myself,” Dr. Taylor says. “I think we were practicing holistic medicine without even knowing it.”
Taylor expanded the facility, and his wife, Edith, the hospital’s executive director, helped design and build a new center building in the late 1960s.
While the hospital grew, Dr. Taylor kept it on the cutting edge of medicine. He treated patients who were schizophrenic, depressed and some who not only suffered from mental illnesses, but also had substance abuse problems. He used many different types of treatment from electroshock therapy to medications, such as Thorazine. “I feel we were ahead of our time,” says Dr. Taylor.
He fought to keep prices low and to “de-stigmatize” mental illness by opening up the hospital to tours and holding annual symposiums. In 1970, the hospital held a three-day symposium on groundbreaking advances in psychopharmacology with presentations from 18 of the world’s top researchers. These programs and the works published as a result of the symposiums helped shape the education of thousands of psychiatrists across the country.
As Taylor Manor grew, Dr. Taylor’s son, Dr. Bruce Taylor, joined the hospital in 1979 and was eventually named medical director. But like other small hospitals, Taylor Manor felt the pinch as insurance companies drove down costs by cutting the amount they would reimburse for treatment. Taylor Manor struggled, and in July 2002, it sold the operation to neighboring Sheppard Pratt Health System. It retained, however, the buildings and land. “I am relieved about the finances,” Dr. Taylor says. “It is almost like giving your baby to somebody else. I knew it had to happen.”
Dr. Taylor will always remember his father’s drive, determination and the influence he had on the hospital. Isaac Taylor served as hospital administrator until his death in 1978. In the intervening years, Isaac Taylor became a world-renowned philanthropist. “There will never be another Isaac Taylor,” Dr. Taylor says. “I think about him every day.”