Popular local mail carrier’s work and friendship celebrated with postal van procession

• Pearl Taylor, who worked for the U.S. Postal Service for 20 years, is remembered as someone with a big heart who many knew on a first name basis.
• Her white postal truck was driven in the memorial ride from the Royal Oak post office through Pleasant Ridge, Michigan.

Special people hop into our lives, and in some cases onto our porches, every day in some fashion. They proudly do their job with great skill, they make friends along their walk, and they brighten our lives in ways we, too, often take for granted.

I couldn’t tell you the last time Pearl Levette Taylor delivered my mail in Pleasant Ridge; likely it was more than five years ago. I’m not sure I ever knew her name. I knew her by her smile. I often would buy her a heart-shaped box of candy on Valentine’s Day to give her from Phoenix, my dog who barked an awful lot at her all year. He was a corgi but a gentleman.

I remember vividly that I once called the Royal Oak post office to complain when Taylor had stopped delivering mail on my street on the east side of Woodward Avenue but her route continued on the west side of our tiny town.

After 9 a.m. on May 22, Pleasant Ridge Police escorted a fleet of U.S Postal Office trucks and vans — I counted 35 — for a memorial sendoff that began from the back of the Royal Oak post office through downtown Royal Oak on Washington Avenue, down onto Woodward Avenue, and then along the tree-lined streets with large homes on the west-side Pleasant Ridge route where Taylor last served.

‘She would be so sweet to our dogs’

It was a touching, respectful tribute to a special working mother of four boys, who died a few months shy of her 54th birthday. Friends she made along the way shared memories via the House of Johnson Funeral Home in Detroit website, noting how they never saw her “unhappy or mad about anything.”

“She was not our mail carrier,” one wrote, “but we saw her every day on our walks with our dogs. We would chat for a few minutes and she would be so sweet to our dogs.”

She showed just that kind of affection to my late Phoenix, who I do believe received a Milk-Bone treat from her at least once or twice.

“I think everyone on Oxford knew her by name,” another wrote.

“Pearl, you lit up every day with your lovely smile! We enjoyed our conversations with you so much! Not many people know their mail carrier on a first name basis. To us, you were much more than a mail carrier. You were a friend to many in our community. Rest in peace. You are going to be missed,” wrote a Cyndi Chouinard, a longtime Pleasant Ridge resident.

I told my husband we had to drive to the Royal Oak post office the minute I saw a Facebook post that indicated the Pleasant Ridge police escort would begin at 9 a.m. that morning. We sort of rushed out the door; we had a few bills to mail as well. (Yes, we still mail a few bills from inside the post office.)

A ‘go-to sister’ for family, others

Her brother Carl Taylor, 56, had a bright pink T-shirt with his sister’s photo on it. He stood near the postal carriers in the parking lot as they listened to Pleasant Ridge Police Chief Robert Ried for instructions on how the escort would be handled on the rainy streets.

“That was my go-to sister,” Taylor told me by phone after the tearful tribute.

His sister’s white postal truck was driven in the memorial procession. Carl Taylor was in the procession, too, driven by one of her co-workers following the parade of postal vehicles.

He felt blessed, as her neighborhood’s customers came outside, some holding signs with her name on it. Many yelled out “Pearl” as the post office trucks drove past their homes. Some came out on the sidewalk with their dogs.

“My sister had a big heart,” Carl Taylor told me. “Her customers were her family. She wasn’t just coming to work to go to work.”

She was the go-to for many, he said, the organizer of the lunches, the birthdays and more. “If anything was to get done, ‘Vette going to get it done.”

Taylor, who lived in Eastpointe now, had worked for the postal service for 20 years, he said, and co-workers at the Royal Oak post office did a balloon release and flew the flag at half-staff to celebrate that anniversary a week ago after her death May 9. He recalled that she worked in the Royal Oak post office but also worked in the past in Madison Heights.

Her brother lives in Aubrey, Texas, north of Dallas, where he drives an 18-wheeler hauling new cars and trucks to dealerships. He handles them all from the Detroit Three automakers to Mercedes.

He would always call his sister to grumble a bit about what Mom wanted now. His little sister would laughingly tell her older brother that their mother was his “mama first.” Their mother, Yevonne Scott, 73, lives in Memphis, Tennessee.

He just tried calling his sister minutes before he got word that she died suddenly, he said, after a very short illness. He was going to call her to complain again.

Taylor grew up in a family of four, with her sister Willet Fleming, 52; brother Wayne Taylor, 55, and brother Carl Taylor.

She has four sons: Twins now age 27, Chrishtin and Christofer Culberson; CJ Taylor, 18, and Carmelous Taylor, 16. The younger sons both attend Oak Park High School.

I remember meeting two of her sons once, as they helped her collect food one year from my porch for the “Stamp Out Hunger” nonperishable food drive that runs each second Saturday in May.

Taylor said he and his siblings were raised in Gary, Indiana, by his grandmother, the late Sarah Pearl Taylor, who was a pastor of a Christian church, and his grandfather, the late Carl Taylor, who was an assistant pastor. His sister embraced the spirit of giving and kindness, just the way they were raised.

“She had the most biggest heart, loved serving her community, her church. She loved her job. Her job wasn’t just a job; her job was like her second family,” he said.

“She loved her family. She loved her girlfriends. ‘Vette just had a big heart.”

“And I can say she never met a stranger,” her brother said.

Often through life, he said, someone would ask why she was so giving. People would ask her, he said, why are you who you are? Why are you like that? She’d attribute it to how she was raised by her grandparents in Gary.

“You know what she’d say?” her brother said.

As part of his tribute, her brother made sure to stamp her answer on his T-shirt.

Simple white writing under a photo of Pearl Taylor standing in her post office uniform on the snowy streets said it all: “Taylor Made.”

Visitation is scheduled from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. May 23 at the House of Johnson Funeral Home at 12540 Hayes St. in Detroit. The funeral is at 10 a.m. May 24 at the Embassy Covenant Church at 195 Ladd Road, in Walled Lake.

Contact personal finance columnist Susan Tompor: stompor@freepress.com. Follow her on X @tompor.

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