Deacon Samuel Taylor, the retired Coast Guard captain who spent his retirement as a deacon in “constant presence” at his parish of Holy Trinity in Kuliouou, died Feb. 24 at his home in Hawaii Kai. He was 98 and a deacon for 20 years.
“It was like one of the family that died,” said Carole Suapaia, the longtime pastoral associate of Holy Trinity Parish.
“He just did everything,” Suapaia said, “He filled every shoe.”
Bishop Larry Silva will preside at Deacon Taylor’s funeral Mass at 11 a.m., March 18, at Holy Trinity Parish. His committal rite is 1 p.m. at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Punchbowl crater.
“He would show up faithfully every single day at Mass,” said Suapaia. When he couldn’t drive, “he took the bus or rode his bicycle.”
“He would visit Lunalilo Home (for the elderly), and all the homes around here. He would bring Communion to the homebound,” she said.
Holy Trinity’s religious education coordinator Carrie Boyer also said it was Taylor’s “reliability and constant presence at church” that she remembers most.
She also recalled how he shared his love for the Stations of the Cross with the children of the parish.
“Some years he would begin the service and have the children read all the parts and carry the cross,” Boyer said. “Deacon Sam would travel with the group, then close the service in prayer.”
Taylor “inspired others” in this Lenten devotion, she said.
Samuel Earl Taylor was born on May 19, 1916, in Yakima, Washington, the first of three children of Samuel Earl Moore Jr. and Laura May Stauffer who were farmers. His father died of influenza in 1918. In 1922, his mother married Norman Leo Taylor, a Canadian Catholic working in the Yakima area installing power lines.
In 1924, the family moved to Tacoma where the children and their mother were baptized Catholics and a stepbrother was born. There Samuel attended the parish elementary school staffed by Dominican nuns.
The family moved to Seattle in 1926, where the children attended public schools. In 1935, Samuel enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard as an apprentice seaman. He was assigned to Coast Guard cutters based in Washington and Alaska.
At Port Angeles, Washington, he met Patricia Lu McNeill and married her in September, 1939. Deployments and promotions sent him to Astoria, Oregon, Seattle, Columbus, Ohio, and Greenland.
World War II gave him duty aboard a Coast Guard-operated Navy attack troop transport in the South Pacific.
More sea and shore assignments followed after the war. His family also grew to four children during this period.
In 1965 he was promoted to the rank of captain and in 1966 given command of a Honolulu-based Coast Guard cutter performing weather patrols west of Midway Island. He retired in 1968 after 33 years of continuous active service.
In 1969, the family bought a home in Hawaii Kai. For the first time in their marriage, they did not have to look forward to having to pack and move in three or so years. In 1974, the youngest daughter, Susan, died suddenly of heart attack. His wife died in 1979.
After Patricia’s death, Samuel became active as a lay minister at Holy Trinity Church. In 1989 he was accepted as a candidate in the permanent diaconate program and ordained a deacon by Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo on July, 19, 1995. He retired from active ministry on July 31, 2005.
“Deacon Sam” will be “dearly missed,” said Holy Trinity’s secretary Patricia Dau.
“He was a very dear person to everyone here at Holy Trinity,” she said. “He was an extremely faith-filled and dedicated person.”
“We have a hard time remembering when he actually was no longer able to serve as a deacon because he was always here,” she said.
Taylor is survived by two sons, Gary and Michael.
