Venna Monson Taylor

Teenage Venna and later with son Bayard

Venna

My sister, Venna

By

Weldon P. Monson

October 8, 1973

There is a great cultural influence in having an older sister like Venna.  With her beautiful disposition and her music about the home, her guidance on those things which younger brothers do not find in their areas of interest such as football, baseball, basketball, etc is most important to the full and rounded development of young boys as they mature into young men.  There is a feminine touch that adds a little beauty and soft, gracious qualities which otherwise might develop in a rougher and more crude form.  There is also, in this case, a definite influence upon the younger sister, particularly in music.

Venna was an accomplished pianist, having received her musical education, at an early age, always at the hands of the best teachers.  She showed particular promise in Ogden when we lived there and this was continued in New York City where she studied under Paderewski’s favorite pupil, Tsaiowsky.  When we l ived at 33 West 126^th Street in New York she was up every morning at 5 o’clock for two or three hours of practice.  How I used to love those numbers she played, piece that I now hear played by the leading pianists of our day.  Each time I hear them now my mind goes back through the years to those times when I heard Venna play them so beautifully.  When we lived in Salt Lake and she was married to Bayard Taylor, a grandson of President John Taylor, I used to go over to their home just to hear her play.  She always knew how much I loved her music and would know just what pieces I liked most.  They were always the best of the masters and she always gave her best to any expression at the piano.  She was always in demand by the missionaries for music at church and in the mission home.  She often accompanied Hazel Tout (a close friend who became Broadway star Hazel Dawn) as she played the violin; Margaret Romaine (Browning)(Tout) of the Metropolitan Opera as she sang; and the trio of the father Edwin Tout, Hazel on the violin and Eleanor on the cello in beautiful musical renditions at the church and in the mission home.  She was loved by everyone not only for her beautiful music but for all the wonderful qualities she possessed as a person.

When she married Bayard he was a very handsome aviator, just returning from World War I in Europe.  He distinguished himself in this field both in the service and later in civilian life.  After some years in the automobile business with his brother Elliott, who handled Chryslers in Utah when they first came out, he went back to flying.  He flew a tri-motor Fokker plane from Amarillo, Texas, to Los Angeles, opening the first route for Western Air Express, a route which formed the start of T.W.A.  He owned his own Detractor Stinson.  While driving his car in California he was hit by a large chauffeur-driven limousine which went through a red light.  Two of his children were hurt and the insurance paid them each some $1800.  Bayard said there was nothing wrong with him and took nothing except for damages to his car.  He signed a release and then found he did have a back injury which prevented him from flying any further.  This was the start of difficult financial problems which would plague them for the rest of their lives.  Venna met [death] in a tragic automobile accident as she was driving through Nebraska and a tornado suddenly arose and lifted the car into the air and as it came down she was critically injured and died without regaining consciousness in a Columbia, Nebraska, hospital leaving her husband and six younger children at the age of 39.  Her two daughters, Peggy and Joyce, were with her to visit such places as Nauvoo, Carthage, Kirtland Temple, etc after the picked up a new car in Detroit.  The rest of the story Blanche can tell as she was closer to the situation than any of the rest of the family.

Venna attended high school in New York graduating from Wadleigh High School and then going into music.  I doubt if she was ever interested in college or college life.  At least, if she was, it was never indicated to any of us.  She was extremely happy to have the chance to study as she did.  When we moved to Salt Lake in 1919 she was considered, along with Becky Almond, as the finest pianists in Utah.  I personally thought Venna was, by far, the best of the two.  But Venna had to work and took a job with the Deseret Book Store at 7 dollars a week and worked 6 ten hour days for it.  This certainly did not encourage her music and Bayard, her husband, was not a music enthusiast.  He liked music but had no real appreciation for it.  Venna’s talents in Salt Lake were limited in time to playing for the ward, on both the piano and the organ, and for family get-togethers at home.  I have always thought it a shame that such talent should be wasted in a city like Salt Lake.  Today, I hear the best pianists at Lincoln Center and at Carnegie Hall and I know that Venna had it all.  She taught music at the Holladay Junior High School just before her marriage and started off Leigh Harline, one of her students, on his way to fame as the composer of music for Walt Disney in California, composing such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, etc etc.  Blanche could give you more on this as she came to know Leigh Harline quite well and he often came to our home at 3123 South 7^th East St.

She was a lovely sister, and one of the finest women I have ever known.  I think, as stated above, Blanche can give you the rest of the story and a good picture of her.  If she does not have one I may be able to get one for you.

Weldon P. Monson

October 8, 1973

P.S.

One day Margaret Romaine asked Venna to accompany her to the New York apartment of Ignace Paderewski.  She had been invited there to see a new solid ivory piano the people of Poland had given him.  He had been, or was to be, their Premier and he was held in the highest esteem by his people.  When they arrived Paderewski asked Venna if she would play the new piano for him.  She did, and afterward he asked her what she thought of it.  She blushed a little and then said, “Would you like to know what I really think?”  He said, “By all means, Miss Monson.”  She then said, “I think it is only fair.  It is a beautiful piano but the tone qualities are too sharp and mechanical.”  He said, “I was hoping that you would say that, for that is just how I feel.  For that reason, I always use my Mason-Hamlin over there (pointing).”  We have had a Mason-Hamlin piano ever since and we now have one in our living room just for that reason.  Venna also always had a Mason-Hamlin.  She loved this piano and not long before she died she offered it to the bishop for tithing.  She had nothing more.

[Kris' Note:  Aunt Venna remained influential in my life even though she died decades before I was born.  She introduced my parents to each other -- she had taken a liking to my mother, a talented young musician in her ward in Southern California, and introduced her cute brother to this girl.  My parents cared for Jon and Jackie, and Joyce for awhile, after Venna died, so I considered them to be nearly like siblings of mine.  I grew up near Venna's beautiful daughter Sally and her children who are still very dear to me.  My parents remained close to Jon and Bayard into their later years.  I had been told by Dad, Mom, Lafe, Blanche and Keyne that I somewhat reminded them of Venna, which I have always taken as a great compliment.  (Although I am now too old to even look like myself. =)  That's life.)  I'm grateful to be Aunt Venna's niece.]

[Kris' Note:  For more information about Aunt Venna, her daughter Sally Taylor Roberts wrote a beautiful book about her.  It is archived online in FamilySearch books: Venna, A Legacy of Love