William P. Taber, Jr., was born in Cadiz, Ohio, Oct. 29, 1927, the son of William P. and Sara (Negus) Taber.  His ancestors on both sides of the family had been members of the Society of Friends for many generations, and for three generations prior had been active in Ohio Yearly Meeting of Friends (Conservative).  At age ten, however, the family moved to Pittsburgh.  In 1945, he graduated from Olney Friends School in Barnesville, Ohio.  He married Frances Irene Smith, an Earlham student in 1952-53, in 1956. At the end of World War II, Bill, as he was known, refused to register for the draft and was imprisoned at Sandstone, Minnesota.  He subsequently graduated from William Penn College and studied English at the University of Pittsburgh.  His spent most of his life teaching: at Moses Brown School in Providence, Rhode Island; the Pennington School for Boys in New Jersey; and for twenty years at Olney, In 1981, the Tabers became members of the teaching staff at Pendle Hill in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, where they served until retiring in 1994.  They then returned to Barnesville. Bill Taber was best known as a “public Friend,” a sought-after speaker for Quaker organizations and a widely quoted and cited author.  He received the M.A. in religion from the Earlham School of Religion in 1966.  His thesis, a history of Ohio Yearly Meeting (Conservative), was later published as The Eye of Faith.  He died in Barnesville, Ohio, April 15, 2005.

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