Esther Talley Davis Taliaferro Boykin

Esther Talley Davis Taliaferro Boykin entered into eternal rest on July 3, 2014. She was the wife of Charles Valk Boykin, Jr of Charleston, SC. The relatives and friends are invited to attend her funeral service Saturday, July 12, 2014 in The Chapel at Bishop Gadsden at 2:00 p.m. Arrangements by J. Henry Stuhr, Inc., Downtown Chapel.

Mrs. Boykin was born December 26, 1915 in Columbia, SC and grew up there. She was the daughter of Robert Means Davis and Esther Evelyn Talley. She attended Wesleyan College for two years and graduated from The University of South Carolina in 1937. On September 2, 1939 she married Richard McCulloch Taliaferro, a medical student at Duke University. She was a laboratory technician there and later at Vanderbilt University.

She lived an active life as President of Tri Delta Sorority at USC and as a member of the Junior League in Columbia, SC and chairman of the League Follies in Greensboro, NC. During her years in Greensboro, NC, she was a charter member of the Debutante Club and the Kirkwood Garden Club. She loved family, friends, tennis, music, gardening and her church.

In 1987, she married Charles Valk Boykin, Jr. after a fifty-year gap in their college friendship. Mr. Boykin was a prominent ship builder who supervised the building of The Yorktown II now in Charleston harbor, and also the luxury passenger liner The United States, The American, and many wartime vessels.

A daughter, Lynne Beller of Edmond, OK, a son, Reverend Bob Taliaferro of Amarillo, TX and eight grandchildren and five great grandchildren survive Mrs. Boykin. Her daughter, Penny Elliot and son, Richard Taliaferro preceded her in death. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to St. Philips Church, Bishop Gadsden Retirement Center or Hospice.