| Jim Nestor wrote in our guestbook: "I have been delighted to be able to read a bit about Taylor's Island, where my parents and I enjoyed several summers in the late 1940s. My father was a Greek employee, and I believe a distant relative of Gregory Taylor, who gave my father his first job in the USA working in the kitchen of the St. Moritz Hotel during the 1930s. During the late 1930s and into the 1940s my father worked summers on the island for Gregory Taylor, which included helping to build the sea wall. My father had put his initials, "AN" for Alex Nestor, on the top of the seawall using either pebbles or seashells, I don't recall which. In the big hurricane of 1938, when the island was badly flooded and heavily damaged, my father was alone on the island and very nearly had to use one of the doors in the main house as a raft to survive... Fortunately, the storm subsided before that was necessary. If I recall his story correctly, the water flooded the whole island, including the main house. During our summers on the island, we stayed in one of the two bungalows that were on the southwest side of the island, near the dock. Both bungalows are now, of course, gone, although I noticed on an earlier visit to the island, their foundations are still apparent... I have wonderful memories, and some film, of great fishing in the waters there, and row boats whose bottoms were filled with blue claw crabs when we went crabbing there. I was saddened to read in an article by Andrew Arkin about the passing of Steve ('Naki', as we knew him) Stefano, whom I knew as a young boy while we were on the island. I also remember his young sister Penny. And, I have a recollection of a young boy nicknamed "Brooks", who used to motor around in the bay there... He lived in a house on the other side of the causeway, opposite Taylor's Island dock... If anyone knows how I might get in touch with Penny (Penelope) Stefano, Steve's younger sister, please let me know. Best regards with fond memories..." |