Grantley Walder Taylor II, MD - May 23, 2025
Grantley “Grant” Taylor was born at Doctor’s Hospital in Manhattan on April 13, 1948, a birthday he proudly shared with Thomas Jefferson. His grandfather and namesake, (Grantley Walder Taylor I), was a surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital. His father, John Grantley Taylor of Brookline, MA, was also a physician. His mother, Marie-Louise Stahl, of San Mateo, CA was a homemaker. His parents divorced in 1960, and his mother then married Robert L. Crawford, Jr., of Bedford, NY, who became a beloved stepfather, and his father married Anne Reese, of Pittsfield, PA who became his stepmother. So, he grew up in a large, blended family with seven siblings.
Grant attended Trinity School in Manhattan, graduating with highest honors in 1965 and obtained a B. S. in Mathematics from Trinity College in Hartford, CT in 1969. As a freshman, he won a Phi Gamma Delta Prize in mathematics. He received his medical degree from New York University School of Medicine in 1973 and completed a residency in internal medicine at Rhode Island Hospital (1973–1976). For the following four years, he practiced as a primary care physician at Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center, treating an underserved community in the inner city. He completed a second residency in psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine (1981–1984).
Grant’s career as a psychiatrist was devoted to inpatient psychiatry at Pembroke Hospital, Harvard Pilgrim’s inpatient unit at Arbour Hospital, and finally as Medical Director of an inpatient unit at McLean Hospital from which he retired. Grant was devoted to treating very ill patients and returning them to health and to the community.
He was a consummate foodie, preparing and eating every possible cuisine with family and friends. He traveled everywhere chasing exotic fare—more recently, with his med school buddies with whom he remained in touch. But he absolutely worshipped coffee and could spend weeks researching the most exacting grinding and brewing techniques to ensure that perfect cup of morning joe.
Grant was also extremely athletic and engaged in or watched almost every sport. His favorite teams were the Celtics, the Patriots, and the Mets. But running was king, and he completed the New York City Marathon and the Boston Marathon several times with his two close friends, Marty and George.
Enchanted with education, Grant enjoyed teaching medicine at Brigham Hospital early in his career, but found greater joy in helping his boys learn to sail or catch crabs off a pier during their summers on Cape Cod. And he delighted in his relationship with his two young grandsons, who simply adored him.
In later years, to keep his mind active, Grant dabbled in languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. He also immersed himself in hobbies like cloud watching, watercolors, coding, and glider flying; and he played guitar, often accompanied by family and friends at informal gatherings. But he favored sitting by his fireplace, strumming and picking without an audience. He read widely and had many interests, but his first love was always mathematics, the beauty of which he found in absolutely everything.
Grant is pre-deceased by his brothers Robbie and Johnny. He is survived by his former wife, Carol, his two sons, Jacob (wife Esther) and Marco, his two grandsons, Knox and Jackson, and his five remaining siblings, Louise, Liz, Lindsay, Mary and Andrew—all of whom he loved dearly, as they did him.