Geri Taylor, voice on Alzheimer’s, dies at 81

Geri Taylor, whose candid accounts of the ravages of Alzheimer’s were so powerful that they made her a public advocate for people with the disease, died Aug. 4 in Danbury, Conn. She was 81.

The cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease, said her husband, Jim Taylor.

Ms. Taylor, a former nurse, brought the expertise, knowledge and sincerity of her profession to her second career as an activist. She and Mr. Taylor became habitual guests in Alzheimer’s articles, activists in Washington and lecturers to patients and researchers. Together they spoke to more than 15,000 people, Mr. Taylor said.

It all stemmed from a 21,000-page profile of the Taylor family published in The Recent York Times in 2016 — the result of 20 months of work by reporter NR Kleinfield, a specialist in writing stories about people of little fame but great significance.

“The familiar face of Alzheimer’s,” Mr. Kleinfield wrote, was “a withered person with a confused mind, trapped in a nursing home.” But there was something else, he added: “a beginning, a period of waiting that Geri Taylor navigates with thoughtfulness, grace and hope.”

Ms Taylor first learned she had Alzheimer’s in 2012, at the age of 69, after she looked in the mirror one day and didn’t recognise her face.

Later, at a family reunion, she had difficulty speaking to relatives because she sometimes forgot such basic information as the name of the town where her sister had lived for 40 years.

Her therapist advised her not to tell people she had Alzheimer’s, warning her friends and family would abandon her.

Ms. Taylor did the opposite. She told everyone — even strangers she met on the street.

At CaringKind, an Alzheimer’s advocacy organization in Midtown Manhattan, not far from the Taylors’ home on the Upper West Side, she led an effort to create a support group for Alzheimer’s patients where they could share treatment strategies with minimal outside input.

She rededicated herself to her passion for photography. Her husband followed in her footsteps, chasing his dream of acting in the theater; he ended up being cast in a Las Vegas play about, ironically, Alzheimer’s disease.

“We’re always living in the present now,” Ms. Taylor told Mr. Kleinfield. “I can’t remember putting anything aside.”

Mr Taylor added: “We are much more committed to being together. The illness has caused that.”

Sharing such sentiments and anecdotes became the foundation of Ms. Taylor’s novel life as an activist.

After Ms. Taylor was profiled in the Times, she and Mr. Taylor appeared at events with figures including Maria Shriver and Hoda Kotb. They spoke at conferences in Switzerland and London. The Taylors helped found an organization called Voices of Alzheimer’swhich pushes for affordable and better healthcare. And they campaigned in Washington for Medicare to cover the cost of PET scans and asked the Food and Drug Administration to approve novel drugs for Alzheimer’s disease.

Geraldine Ann Wilson was born May 7, 1943, in Brooklyn and grew up in several towns on Long Island. Her father, Edgar, managed a Woolworth store there, and her mother, Frances (Day) Wilson, was a bank teller and bookkeeper.

In 1964, Geri earned a nursing degree from Mount Sinai Hospital in Recent York City, and a few years later earned a master’s degree in public health from Columbia University. She became medical director of Beth Abraham Hospital and of the Jewish Guild for the Blind, both based in Recent York City.

Her first marriage to Ransom Widmer ended in divorce in 1964. They had a son, Lloyd. Her second marriage to Robert Thompson also ended in divorce.

She met Mr. Taylor in the early 1990s through their children, who were enrolled in the same day camp. He called her to ask about carpooling. Soon after, they went to the Mostly Mozart Festival together. They married in 1993.

In addition to her husband, Mrs. Taylor is survived by her son, three stepchildren, Heidi, Mark and Amy Taylor, a sister, Greta Davey, a brother, Robert Wilson, a granddaughter, and six stepchildren.

Ms. Taylor’s health deteriorated over time, but she still managed to become the face of Alzheimer’s disease clinical trials conducted by pharmaceutical company Lilly and appeared in news reports about Alzheimer’s disease. Daily mail AND Connecticut News-Times and on the local TV channel New York 1.

She and Mr. Taylor followed a model they established when they gave their first public appearance at a Universalist church in Florida in 2015. There, they spoke in a conversational style, focusing on the compact issues of everyday life for people with Alzheimer’s and their caregivers.

Mrs. Taylor told how she liked it when people talked to her: She asked questions one by one; she chose one topic. She appreciated the balmy embrace and smile. She said a few straightforward sentences that she found meaningful: “I know,” “I’m your friend,” “I’m glad you’re here.”