by Josh Levin
It’s unclear whether these biographical details represented the truth as Taylor’s daughter understood it or if Sandra had chosen a set of facts she thought her mother would’ve chosen for herself. Linda Taylor, or Constance Loyd, was born Martha Louise White in 1926, on a cold and rainy day in Golddust, Tennessee. Her father was a black man she likely never met. Her mother, Lydia, was the white great-granddaughter of a Confederate soldier. Taylor had been taught as a child that her parentage defined who she was and limited who she could be. She’d lived her life in defiance of that proposition, constructing whatever past and present best suited her needs. Taylor wielded personas as weapons, using her shifting identities to acquire what she felt she deserved.
Taylor’s white relatives had come out of Cullman County, Alabama, a notoriously racist locale where black people weren’t safe after sundown. Her wake was held at a funeral home in Oak Lawn, Illinois, a Chicago suburb that systematically excluded blacks up through the 1990s. Johnnie spent an hour in the presence of his mother’s body, which was displayed in a simple pine box. When the viewing was over, her corpse was cremated.
The Monday after Taylor died, she was given a Catholic funeral Mass at St. Ethelreda, a majority-black parish on the Southwest Side. Taylor had bonded with Patricia Parks over their shared Catholicism, and she’d professed to be Catholic during her stint at the Federal Medical Center in Lexington. But if she’d had a sincere relationship with a higher power, Johnnie hadn’t known about it.
The Mass was arranged by Sandra’s sons, Hosa and Duke, who as kids had been left in Taylor’s negligent care. Clifford, who’d left home as a fourteen-year-old in the 1950s, flew in for the service. So did Paul, the son Taylor had cast aside in the 1960s, leaving him to spend his formative years in a state-run home in Illinois.
Paul had tried to forget about his mother, but family had never stopped mattering to him. Like Johnnie, he’d met up with Taylor again as an adult, and he and his mother had both ended up in Florida, at times living within miles of each other. When Taylor’s memorial was over, it was Paul who took the small box containing her ashes. Nobody else had wanted them.
* A decade after Losing Ground came out, Murray (with coauthor Richard J. Herrnstein) would publish The Bell Curve, which postulated a genetic link between race and intelligence and argued that “America’s fertility policy…subsidizes births among poor women, who are also disproportionately at the low end of the intelligence distribution.”
** DeParle, for his part, later reported getting a letter from a Times reader that called welfare recipients “low-life scum” and “human garbage.” Another said, “I as a middle class white person is paying for their children because the bloods can’t keep it in their pants.”
Acknowledgments
Writing a book can be isolating, especially the part when you have to write the book. But thinking back on the years I’ve spent puzzling through Linda Taylor’s life, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for the absurd number of people who’ve helped me. It all started in 2012, with an instant-messenger exchange with my first journalistic mentor, Tom Scocca. During that conversation, Tom sent me a link to an old magazine article about Taylor and encouraged me to figure out who she was and how she’d become a symbol for greed and sloth—questions I wouldn’t have known how to approach without the skills Tom had taught me at the Washington City Paper.
I’ve spent the past fifteen years at Slate as part of the brainiest, sprightliest crew in all of media. My second journalistic mentor, David Plotz, gave me and so many of my colleagues the time and space to do ambitious work. He guided me and urged me on as I put together the article, published in 2013, that I’ve expanded into this book. This project never would’ve existed without his wisdom and support. Will Dobson, who edited that piece, listened to me ramble about warranty deeds and spent weeks of his life—OK, months—helping me fashion a coherent narrative. I feel preposterously lucky to have landed in the same place as Julia Turner, the sharpest and zazziest friend and colleague of them all. She made it possible for me to see this through to the end.
I owe an enormous amount to dozens upon dozens of Slatesters, past and present, folks who contributed to my original essay and have buoyed me with advice and good cheer. Thank you to Lowen Liu, Allison Benedikt, Laura Bennett, Gabriel Roth, Jacob Weisberg, Dan Check, Chad Lorenz, Leon Neyfakh, Ava Lubell, Laura Miller, June Thomas, Chris Suellentrop, Jack Shafer, Jessica Winter, John Dickerson, Emily Yoffe, Jill Pellettieri, Vivian Selbo, Lisa Larson-Walker, Holly Allen, Bill Smee, Andy Bowers, Chris Kirk, Ben Blatt, and my podcast partners Stefan Fatsis, Mike Pesca, and the unforgettable Zelmo Beaty.
My agent, Alia Hanna Habib of the Gernert Company, believed in me and this story from the outset. Her steady hand and peerless editorial judgment got me across the finish line. Alia’s former colleagues David McCormick and Leslie Falk of McCormick Literary have also been unfailingly helpful, as has my film agent Joe Veltre at Gersh.
Enlisting Leonard Roberge to help me figure out how this whole book-writing thing works was one of the wisest choices I’ve ever made. Not having appraised other freelance book editors, I can still say with confidence that Leonard is the greatest freelance book editor on the planet—diligent and perceptive, with no tolerance for lazy thinking. Bringing on Anna Kordunsky to fact-check the manuscript was another fabulous decision. Anna spiffed up my prose and saved me from innumerable missteps. Any mistakes that remain are mine alone.
My editor, Vanessa Mobley at Little, Brown, saw the potential in this book, and she put everything she had into ensuring that its potential was realized. Vanessa is brilliant, patient, and humane. She talked me through the knottiest of problems and gave me the strength I needed to get this project done. And huzzahs and thank yous to the whole peerless team at Little, Brown: publisher Reagan Arthur, production editor Michael Noon, copyeditor Nell Beram, publicist Alyssa Persons, marketing director Pamela Brown, and editorial assistants Joseph Lee and Sareena Kamath.
I’m beholden to everyone who worked with me to unearth and sift through the materials that helped bring Linda Taylor’s story to life. Among those kind souls are Alice Crites, Rebecca Journey, John Kruzel, Ciara McCarthy, Mariana Zepeda, Peter Morris, Cyndy Richardson, Lara Hale, Evin Demirel, Pam Williams, Becca Bender, Ian Philbrick, Steven Wright, and Jacob Rosinplotz. Special thanks to Michael Ravnitzky for his FOIA wizardry; the indefatigable Kim Stankiewicz of Chicago Ancestry, who tracked down a huge number of legal records; and Adam Hirsch, Sam Sedaei, and Thomas Miller, who shook loose the long-buried files from the Lawrence Wakefield probate case.
Thank you also to the archivists and librarians who helped guide my research, among them John Reinhardt and the staff at the Illinois State Archives, Deb Bier at the Peoria Public Library, and Arlene Balkansky at the Library of Congress. Betty Taylor of Alabama’s Marshall County archives and Whit Majors from Florida’s District Fourteen Medical Examiner’s Office found documents I wasn’t sure existed. The scholars Martin Gilens, Julilly Kohler-Hausmann, Robert Lombardo, and Jim Ralph inspired me with their writing and their magnanimity, as did authors Dave Baron, Lou Cannon, and Ethan Michaeli.
I couldn’t have written about Taylor without the help of scores of people whose lives intersected with hers. Among them were Grady Mooney, who showed me around the remnants of Golddust, Tennessee; Ruth Cobb, Jill Vernon, and Bob Vogler, who shared materials on the Illinois Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Children’s School; and Jack Sherwin, Ron Cooper, Jim Piper, Bridget Hutchen, Skip Gant, David Thompson, Craig Alldredge, Sandy Paderewski, Norris Bishton, Leon Wexler, Charlotte Nesbitt-Langford, and Linda Giesen, who walked me through reams of court and prison records.
I’m indebted to Taylor’s relatives, George Bliss’s colleagues and children—especially Bliss’s oldest son, Bill—and the Parks, Moore, Ray, Snell, and Markham families. It’s humbling to know that so many people entrusted me with their stories. I hope that I did them justice.
Rich So, Ben Healy, Laurel Wamsley, Stephanie
Foerster, and Pat Stack made my frequent trips to Chicago a lot less lonely. Steve Feinstone and Frank Foer very generously offered me places to write. Bryan Curtis, John Swansburg, Melonyce McAfee, and Dan Engber did me the amazing kindness of reading my work in progress and suggesting all manner of improvements. My dear friend Jordan Hirsch read the book, schlepped to the Louisiana Supreme Court on my behalf, and spent hours with me on the phone talking through themes and character arcs and plot developments. Big books have big problems—thanks to James Carmichael, John Mangin, Chris Park, Reihan Salam, and Jesse Shapiro for helping me solve them, and for keeping me motivated and entertained. And thank you to Hanna Rosin, Brendan Koerner, Patrick Keefe, Luke O’Brien, Alan Siegel, Dave McKenna, Jordan Ellenberg, Wendy Jacobson, Gabe Mendlow, Dr. Ted Bloch III, Dr. Frank Wilklow, John Bronsteen, Abby Dos Santos, Ryan Boehm, Kevin Maney, David Sarma, Jackie Delamatre, Adam Nielsen, Ellie Davis, Steven Ehrenberg, Heather McDonald, Adam Graham-Silverman, Tony Valadez, and Christopher Seidman for their advice and encouragement.
Lauren Levin is the smartest and most compassionate person I know. Our conversations help me see connections I wouldn’t otherwise see, and my life wouldn’t be as rich or as fun without my big sister. Having Alan and Marilyn Levin as my parents is the best thing that ever happened to me. They made me who I am and got me to where I am. I’m grateful for the love and support of my grandparents Irv and Lil Levin and Irwin and Fay Miller, my Uncle Sidney Levin, and all my aunts, uncles, and cousins in Louisiana, Texas, and beyond. Thank you to Michael Seidman and Lynda Couvillion for being my family away from home. And to Jess: Your belief in me helped me believe in myself. Thank you. I love you. It’s done!
Timeline of
Linda Taylor’s Life
1926: Linda Taylor is born Martha Louise White in Golddust, Tennessee. Later in the year, her mother Lydia marries Joseph Jackson Miller in Mississippi County, Arkansas.
1940: Taylor is identified in the census as Martha Miller, a white 13-year-old living in Burdette Township, Mississippi County, Arkansas. She also gives birth to a son, Clifford.
1944: Under the name Martha Gordon, Taylor is arrested in Port Orchard, Washington, for vagrancy, and under the name Martha Davis, she’s arrested in Seattle for disorderly conduct.
1945: Taylor has a chance encounter with her uncle Hubert Mooney in Oakland, California, and they spend a night out on the town with friends. A week later, Taylor is arrested for malicious mischief under the name Connie Reed and asks Mooney to bail her out of jail.
1946: Under the name Betty Smith, Taylor is arrested in Oakland on the suspicion she’s engaging in prostitution and infected with a venereal disease.
1948: Under the name Connie Harbaugh, Taylor is arrested in Oakland for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. She marries navy enlisted man Paul Harbaugh and gives birth to a second son, who’s also named Paul.
1950: Taylor gives birth to a third son, Johnnie, in Arkansas.
1951: Taylor gives birth to a daughter, Sandra, in Arkansas.
1952: Taylor gets divorced from Paul Harbaugh in Tennessee and marries Troy Elliott in Arkansas.
1956: Taylor gives birth to a fourth son, Robin, in Arkansas.
1959: Taylor helps Avalon and Annie Mae Moore’s family escape the deprivations of sharecropping in Arkansas. They move together to Peoria, Illinois, where Taylor files a lawsuit alleging her children Paul and Sandra were injured in a school explosion there. The lawsuit is dismissed a little more than seven years later.
1963: After relocating from Peoria to Chicago, Taylor is arrested under the name Beverly Singleton for assaulting a twelve-year-old girl.
1964: Under the name Constance Wakefield, Taylor presents herself as the daughter of Lawrence Wakefield, a wealthy and recently deceased Chicago policy king. Thanks in part to testimony from Taylor’s mother and her Uncle Hubert, a probate court judge rules she’s not Wakefield’s heir and sentences her to six months in jail for contempt, though she’ll never serve that time.
1967: Taylor is arrested in Chicago for endangering the life of a child, unlawful use of a weapon, and kidnapping. She won’t be prosecuted for any of these alleged crimes.
1969: Taylor marries Willie Walker in Chicago. She also succeeds in getting the Veterans Administration to classify her daughter Sandra as a “helpless child” owing to the girl’s supposed injuries from the Peoria school explosion.
1971: Willie Walker files for divorce from Taylor.
1972: Under the name Connie Jarvis, Taylor gives Chicago Police Department detective Jack Sherwin a false burglary report. Taylor is also arrested for welfare fraud by the Michigan State Police under the name Connie Green. She skips bail in Michigan and never serves time for the offense.
1973: Taylor marries Aaron Bennett in Chicago and files for divorce a few months later.
1974: In August, Taylor marries Lamar Jones in Chicago. That same month, Sherwin finds multiple public aid identification cards in Taylor’s Chicago apartment after she calls in another phony burglary. The detective arrests Taylor on behalf of the State of Michigan, where she has an outstanding felony warrant. In September, the Chicago Tribune’s George Bliss writes his first story about Taylor. Later that month, Taylor fails to appear at a Chicago court hearing. She’s found shortly thereafter in Tucson, Arizona; the Tribune, in reporting her jailing in Arizona, refers to Taylor as the “welfare queen” for the first time. Taylor is brought back to Chicago, and in November she’s indicted for theft, perjury, and bigamy. Toward the end of the year, Taylor moves in with Patricia Parks.
1975: While under Taylor’s care, Parks dies of a barbiturate overdose. Taylor, whom Parks had made the trustee of her estate, is investigated for Parks’s killing but isn’t arrested or charged with a crime.
1976: In January, Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan begins referring to a woman in Chicago—Taylor—who “used 80 names, 30 addresses, 15 telephone numbers” to scam the public aid system. Also in January, Taylor, using the name Linda C.B. Wakefield, marries Sherman Ray in Chicago. In February, she’s arrested in Chicago and charged with burglary after stealing a television, fur coat, and household goods from her ex-roommate. Later in the year, Taylor kidnaps Ray’s niece, Diana; she isn’t arrested or charged with a crime.
1977: Two and a half years after Taylor’s arrest by Jack Sherwin, her welfare fraud trial finally begins. A Chicago jury finds her guilty of theft and perjury, and she’s sentenced to three to seven years in state prison.
1978: Taylor begins serving her sentence in Dwight Correctional Center. She’s also sentenced to a concurrent five-and-a-half-year prison term after pleading guilty to the burglary charges from 1976.
1980: Illinois’ state parole board releases Taylor from prison after she’s been incarcerated for a little more than two years. Reagan, who makes campaign fodder of the “woman in Chicago [who] received welfare benefit[s] under 127 different names,” beats Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter to win the presidency.
1983: Taylor’s husband Sherman Ray is shot and killed in Momence, Illinois, by Willtrue Loyd—a man Taylor falsely claimed was her father. After Ray’s killing, Taylor, Loyd, and Mildred Markham—a woman Taylor falsely claimed was her mother—move together to Florida.
1984: Reagan wins re-election.
1985: Under the name Linda Ray Linch, Taylor is arrested in Holmes County, Florida, for stealing four bulls. Taylor, as Linda Ray Lynch, also alleges that she’s been mutilated by an unlicensed plastic surgeon. Markham deeds 185 acres of land in Mississippi to Taylor and Taylor’s son Clifford. Taylor meets Queen Snell and Snell’s three daughters.
1986: Taylor moves into the Snells’ home in Graceville, Florida. Markham dies in Florida after suffering a head injury; her death is ultimately ruled accidental. Taylor begins receiving Markham’s pension checks from the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board.
1987: Under the name Linda C. Lynch, Taylor is arrested in Jasper, Florida, for stealing a refrigerator.
1988: Taylo
r receives separate life insurance settlements stemming from the deaths of Ray and Markham.
1994: Under the name Linda Springer, Taylor is arrested in Tampa, Florida, and charged with illegally cashing Markham’s federal pension checks. She’s sent to a federal mental health facility and found incompetent to stand trial two separate times.
1995: Taylor is found incompetent to stand trial a third time. She’s released from federal custody and committed to a state facility in Tampa.
1996: Federal prosecutors drop their indictment against Taylor. Around 1996, Taylor’s son Johnnie picks her up from the state facility in Tampa and brings her with him to Illinois. Taylor lives with Johnnie for a short period, then moves in with her daughter, Sandra.
2002: Taylor dies in Chicago at the age of 76 under the name Constance Loyd.
Bibliography
A Note on Sources
The Queen tells the story of Linda Taylor’s life from beginning to end. Taylor was in the public eye for only a very brief period: the handful of years in the mid-1970s when she became known as the “welfare queen.” In writing about her rise to infamy, I relied on contemporaneous reporting from the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Defender, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Daily News, wire services, and national news outlets as well as television footage from CBS, NBC, and ABC. The task of hunting down primary sources was complicated by Taylor’s deployment of dozens upon dozens of aliases. Ultimately, I was able to dig up police reports and court files from multiple jurisdictions, and I obtained FBI files and investigation records via the Freedom of Information Act. Among the interviews I conducted about Taylor’s entanglements with the Chicago police and the Cook County courts, I had particularly fruitful conversations with detective Jack Sherwin, who died in 2018, and defense attorney Isaiah “Skip” Gant.
