An unidentified teacher works with the first five boys at the school. From left, the students were ‘Connie’ Wetherill, Lance Pelly, ‘Jiggs’ Bates, Ashley Pond, the founder’s son, and Antonio Taylor. Courtesy/family albums of Fermor and Peggy Pond Church

By SHARON SNYDER
Los Alamos

Antonio Jefferson Taylor was born in 1904 in Karnack, Texas.

“Tony” was one of the first students to register at the Los Alamos Ranch School. It isn’t known how Tony or his family knew about the fledgling school, but he attended for two years. He was then sent to a New York boarding school, but it wasn’t long before he returned to New Mexico. By 1924, Tony and his young wife, Elizabeth, were living in the mountains in a tent north of Pecos. The adventurous couple soon moved into Santa Fe, where in 1927 Tony built a home and opened the Old Mexico Shop on Don Gaspar Avenue. The young family soon had two daughters, and the shop became a fixture just off the plaza, becoming an institution in Santa Fe.

Tony Taylor was well known around Santa Fe, but not only as a successful business man but also as a philanthropist and civic leader. In addition to all of that, Tony was famous for something else as well. His brother-in-law was the president of the United States, President Lyndon Johnson. Tony was Lady Bird Johnson’s brother. That fact opened doors to other experiences and contributions. Because he was fluent in Spanish, he served as a translator in talks between Johnson and then Mexican President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz when the new Rio Grande channel was dedicated between El Paso and Juarez in 1968. He was appointed an honorary vice-consul to Spain by his brother-in-law, the President. Tony visited the White House, the Johnson’s Texas ranch, and sites around the world. Despite all of that, he was still remembered in Santa Fe as the chairman of the 1940 Fiesta Council and the man who gave new shoes to the children at the old St. Vincent Orphanage at Christmastime.

In 1974, Tony was asked to return to his old school and meet with other ranch school alumni on a panel for training docents in Fuller Lodge. The panel was billed as “returning alumni of the ranch school, a prep school for teen-aged boys from all over the nation, which graduated some of the nation’s most well-known businessmen, authors, and public figures.”

Antonio Taylor died in Santa Fe in 1986. In a 2007 article in the Albuquerque Journal, Tony was remembered as “a longtime downtown merchant, world traveler, local philanthropist, and all-around colorful character.”