Interview by Gainesville High School senior and Abernathy Cochran intern John Jessup
Meet Joanie Taylor! Joanie retired to the Cresswind community in Gainesville a few years ago with her husband, Dr. Zachary Taylor. She said her favorite restaurant in Gainesville is Luna’s.
We want to thank Joanie for spending time with us recently an telling us more about her life and love of Hall County.
Q: What inspired you or led you to your current career?
A: “I’m retired, I was a dental technician for 42 years. I wanted to be a dancer, I don’t know what happened, but I just come from a long line of people who serve people. Dentistry’s kind of a service industry because you have to want to do that, it doesn’t come easily to look in people’s mouths all day, but it is a great career and I loved every minute of it.”
Q: Tell us a little bit about your background and your family.
A: “I was raised in Ohio and then after college, I came to Atlanta for the first time the day of the Chattahoochee Raft Race in 1971. My husband was a physician with the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington and he spent 23 years at CDC. We took a position out West to finish his career with them and so we got to move to Denver, which was great. It was a fabulous place to live, but then when we both decided to retire we thought we’d come back to the South where all our families are and then he wanted to go back to work. He actually took a job with the state working with all of the health departments in North Georgia. He is the right guy for them, he’s got such a heart for public health. He’s still working, he has an office in Dalton, so he has both sides of the state.”
Q: What is your favorite restaurant in Hall County?
A: “It depends on the day, like on a given day it would be Luna’s. Luna’s is real, you have to admit. It’s very good, and now we’ve got some options coming. “
Q: How long have you lived or worked in Hall County?
A: “Well, not too long. Zach, my husband, since he was in the other state when Covid hit, he stayed in Dalton for two years while I was here by myself for two years, dealing with Covid at both ends. We moved here about three years ago. He’s an intern, he is an incredible human being, he gave up practicing because there’s such an incredible need for public health that he’s like, I didn’t go to medical school to make money, I went to do something and he did. I started a food pantry on our front porch so people would donate food and money to my front porch and then I could pass it out to the food pantries and it worked out great. I was volunteering for Family Promise and saving them at DePaul at the same time.”
Q: Who’s the most interesting person you’ve met here in Hall County?
A: “I think the two people in town are the most dedicated Christian human beings. One is Lindsey McCamy, she developed and started Family Promise. Joanne Capies, she runs St. Vincent de Paul here in town. They just both are incredible human beings just for their dedication and just everything they do. They reach out and help the underprivileged people here and they do a great job.”
Q: If you could travel anywhere in the world right now, where would it be and why?
A: “Iceland for sure! It’s just so clean and the air is good and it’s just going to be a fabulous thing. When I met my husband, he asked me the same question, and I said I really like to go to Iceland. That was a good enough reason to get married, but Iceland just seems like a cool place.”
Q: What is your favorite movie or what is the first movie you remember seeing at a theater?
A: “I don’t remember the first movie because when I was little, we would go on Saturday mornings in the back of the station wagon with 10 kids, No seatbelt but that was always cartoons and stuff. I don’t know, I’m just goofy enough that I still love the Sound of Music. I’ve seen it 50 times. And then The Notebook, it has a great ending.”
Q: What’s some advice that you would give to a crowd of people?
A: “I would say, ‘don’t live with any regrets.’ That would be a big thing to me because years ago somebody told me that if you spend your life looking behind you, two things will happen; you’ll live a fall flat on your face or you’re going to miss something really good that’s ahead and I think that’s the best advice anybody ever gave me.”
Q: What is your favorite music or any band that you like to see?
A: “I really like jazz. I like old standards and stuff. I still like Sinatra. The first two guys that I met when I came to Atlanta were Banks & Shane. They’ve been my friends ever since and I would go anywhere to see them. They’re fun, they’re lighthearted, they don’t take themselves too seriously. “
Q: What former local business makes you the most nostalgic about Hall County?
A: “I’m a big thrift shop girl and we donate a lot to them. And there’s place called My Sister’s Place that helps underprivileged women and women who need to get out of trouble. I love Brown Eyed Girl, too.”
Q: Choosing anyone alive and a non-relative., with whom would you love to have lunch with? And why?
A: “Reverend Howard Graham, he was my minister from when I was a little kid all the way to college. And he just was profoundly involved in my childhood. He always told me I was the most wonderful child he ever knew, he just adored me and it was so sweet. I’d love to ask him how he thinks I turned out. I’d probably want a picnic at Linwood Park, that would be my favorite place. I’d love to just sit outside with him on a bench for a day. I would also love to meet President John Kennedy. And the reason is a selfish reason, it has nothing to do with politics or anything, but my dad grew up very, very poor. And he graduated first in his class from University of Alabama, most likely to succeed. And they never had electricity or indoor plumbing so when he finished college, you had to go into the service. He went in the Navy and he and John Kennedy went through together in Chicago. So, I’d love to know what he thought about my dad.”
Q: What is your favorite thing about Hall County?
A: “I think just the generosity here is amazing. Myself and three other girls started something lately called Helping Hall. It is people donating money to help organizations here in Hall County.”
Q: Where do you see yourself in five to 10 years?
A: “I’ll still be in Cresswind and I’ll still be volunteering five days a week as long as I can. When we moved from Denver, where I was working, it was such a big city and it’s hard to find a place that you fit. When we moved to Dalton, that was my first small town and I saw what in need there was and I got very involved and then coming over here to another relatively small town, it just made me want to just work, dedicate myself full time to doing whatever I can do for the community.”
Q: What is something interesting that most people don’t know about you?
A: “I’ve had some really great experiences. Probably one of my proudest moments that no one really knows about is that I was a volunteer coach for the Special Olympics for 10 years and when I was in Atlanta Eunice Kennedy Shriver, was in charge of the Special Olympics and she flew to Atlanta to give me the Volunteer of the Year Award. I was in a meeting and I didn’t even know, I nearly passed out. It’s such a special relationship you have with those children.”
Q: What three words or phrases come to mind when you think of the word home?
A: “Family, friends and health, that’s all you need.”
