Mary Elizabeth ‘‘Betty” Eaby Taggart 1933 – 2025

Mary Elizabeth “Betty” Eaby Taggart (age 91) died peacefully early Friday morning, January 31 at The Terraces in Orleans.  She had experienced declining health for the past several years.
Born in Boston on May 1, 1933, she was the daughter of Carl Reese Eaby Jr. (1897-1973) and Emily Gertrude Collier Eaby (1904-2002).  Betty was named for her paternal grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Hambright Eaby (1873-1961) of Lancaster, PA.  
  She was raised in a Victorian period home (#694) on the historic Main Street in Hingham.  (In 1942 Eleanor Roosevelt designated Main Street in Hingham as “the most beautiful street in America.”)  
Betty was a 1948 graduate of Derby Academy in Hingham and graduated in 1951 from the Northfield School for Girls in Northfield (now the Northfield-Mt. Hermon School).   She studied at Cornell University, where she majored in fine arts and was a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority.  She also studied at Bennington College.  She attended the Art Institute of Chicago in 1954.
Her October 1954 engagement to Donald Owen Scott Taggart (1926-2014) of Melrose was announced in both the New York Times and the Boston Globe.  While engaged, she attended the Hickox Secretarial School in Boston.  Following her February 1955 marriage in Hingham, she and her husband lived in Chicago, Houston, and Kendall Park, NJ.  Betty established lifelong friendships with the associations that she made during those early years.
After summer vacationing in Brewster on the Cape, the couple permanently settled in East Orleans in 1964, where they were at home at 92 Brick Hill Road.  There they raised their four sons.  She remained in that home for 56 years until 2020 and then resided at Old Colony Village in Orleans, and finally at The Terraces in Orleans, until the recent conclusion of her life.
Betty was employed by Dr. Charles McOuat as office manager of his dental practice in East Orleans from 1978 to 1988.  During that time she established lasting friendships and connections with innumerable patients.
Through her Eaby family Pennsylvania lineage, she was a direct descendent of Andrew Troyer and Aaron Baker, both Revolutionary War patriots.  Her grandfather, Carl Reese Eaby (1867-1923), a prominent lawyer in Lancaster, PA, had a professional connection to President James Buchanan.  Through the Eaby family, Betty inherited period furniture that had formerly belonged to President Buchanan.
Betty was predeceased by her husband in January of 2014, and leaves behind four sons;  James Scott (Jay) Taggart of Orleans, Peter Scott Taggart and his wife of Baltimore, MD, John Scott Taggart and his wife of Ft. Pierce, FL, and Andrew Scott Taggart and his wife of Greenville, SC.  She is survived by six grandchildren, a niece, and a nephew.  She was predeceased by a brother, Carl Reese Eaby III of Williamsburg, VA, and predeceased by a nephew, Carl Reese Eaby IV of Nashville, TN.
Betty’s life was marked by perseverance, determination, an unrelenting Christian faith, and an abiding love for all her family.  Her life will be remembered at a funeral service and Holy Eucharist on Monday, February 10 at 10 a.m. at Nickerson Funeral Home, 77 Eldredge Park Way, Orleans, with the Reverend Lawrence McErlean officiating.  A morning coffee reception will follow the service at Nickerson. Interment will be private afterward at Brewster Cemetery, Lower Road, Brewster.