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Telling Mouse's Tale Becomes A Family Effort

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By JAN HOLLINGSWORTH, The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 19, 2007

Updated: 09/17/2007 09:33 pm

PLANT CITY - Rose Taylor has entertained her grandchildren for years with her tale of Timothy T., 'The Mouse with a House in Cat Valley.'

Now the story of the industrious little rodent with a heart of gold is available in a spiral-bound children's book illustrated by two of Taylor's six grandchildren.

'I feel like anyone can do anything they put their mind to,' said Taylor, who assembled the project from start to finish with the help of a local print shop.

Her inspiration, she said, came from Plant City historian D.E. Bailey Jr., who was Taylor's English teacher at Plant City High in the 1950s.

'I knew she had some talent and I tried to encourage her,' Bailey said. 'I'm glad she's pursued that all these years.'

Taylor, who moved to Seffner more than a decade ago, discovered her love of writing as a first-grader at Jackson Elementary. That's when her teacher, Irvin Wilder Hawkins - better known as the second Florida Strawberry Festival queen - assigned her students to write a Mother's Day poem.

Words soon became Taylor's constant companion.

'I've always written, but just stuck it in a box,' she said.

Two years ago, after the death of her husband, Austin, Taylor set out to assemble the loose ends of her life. Stashed among her writings she found the drawings her granddaughters had made to illustrate the story she had told them for years - about the kindly mouse that saves a lost kitten.

Lauren Taylor, now 17, began drawing her vision of Timothy T. at age 6, when she would stay at her grandmother's house after school. Lauren's father, Timothy, is Taylor's oldest son and the mouse's namesake.

Taylor gathered Lauren's drawings together and typed up the story, dividing it into small blocks of text for each page. Then she hopped a plane to Arizona, where Lauren's 16-year-old cousin, Gabrielle, spent two weeks filling in the illustrative gaps in the story. Gabrielle's father, Robin, is the youngest of Taylor's three sons.

'I'd show Gabi the text and ask her to 'draw what you see,' she said.

Although Lauren's work spans nearly a decade of her life, Gabi's is mostly recent. Yet the colorful pencil drawings complement each other and the story, each infused with a childlike innocence. Their grandmother has no trouble telling who drew what.

'Lauren has a little red flower that turns up in a lot of her pictures,' she said. 'Gabi draws like a map.'

It is a family project that has helped her work through the grief of losing Austin, a fellow Plant City High grad she met on a blind date and married seven months later on Valentine's Day. He died in January 2005.

'I suppose if I hadn't gone back to my writing I would have been lost,' she said.

Those who wish to buy the tale of the clever catnip-toting mouse can order one for $10 from Taylor at (813) 689-0603.

Reporter Jan Hollingsworth can be reached at (813)865-4436 or jhollingsworth@tampatrib.com.

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