Ernie Taylor, 94, lived through both Great Depression & pandemic
By STU CLAMPITT
If you have driven west on State Road 32 past the Indianapolis Executive Airport just across the county line, you have surely noticed a large yard filled with metal sculptures of all shapes and sizes. We do mean ALL shapes and sizes: everything from a silhouette of Elvis to dinosaur skeletons and a Volkswagen Beetle standing a few feet off the ground on insect legs.
The man who created all this art is named Ernie Taylor, and today he turns 94.
On Tuesday, July 5, The Reporter spoke to Ernie (he insisted we not call him Mr. Taylor) about his art and his life.
Ernie has lived at 10985 E. State Road 32, Zionsville, since 1962. When asked about his art, he said, “Well, my wife didn’t like to travel. By her not wanting to travel, I had time to do other things. I made my living in the welding trade and I just started making things. I mostly just recycled junk. I just see what I had in the junk pile. Most people design something to be what they want to make it, but I’d look in the junk pile and just come up with something.”
Ernie told The Reporter he and his late wife, Dottie, never sold any of this art, but they did give away a great deal of it.
“If you make something, it’s fun to make it, but if you’ve got to make it for somebody else, that’s work,” Ernie said with a smile and a light chuckle. “I’ve got a lot of friends who do all kinds of good stuff for me. They spend their winters in Florida and I’d always have a bunch of stuff sitting in their yards when they got back. I can’t do that anymore. I’ll be 94 years old Saturday.”
Ernie said he started his art by making birds sculptures from shovels. Then he began making little alligators from files.
“Just little things,” he said. “It wasn’t no big plan or anything. I just started doing things and here it is.”
Walking around Ernie’s property can be an adventure, with sculptures from just a few inches tall to 12 feet. (Reporter photo by Stu Clampitt)
The man who refused to sell his art says he prefers to be paid in the enjoyment others get from his work.
“I tell people I don’t even have to be here. Just come up and look around,” Ernie said. He also noted that people from farther away are more likely to stop to enjoy his sculptures.
“We have a lot of out-of-state people stop,” Ernie said. “It seems like local people aren’t much for stopping. I don’t know if they’re afraid to or what.”
At 94, and with a heart condition, Ernie has trouble keeping up with the maintenance his art requires.
“I can do a little something, but after I do it, I’ve got to sit down and rest,” Ernie said. “I can do a little more and sit down a rest. I just can’t get out there to paint and maintain things like I used to. I finally got out this morning and got some spraying done.”
Editor’s note: That day, temperatures topped 99 degrees by afternoon.
“I’d come in and ask my wife, ‘do you know what a butterfly looks like?’ When she’d say she did, I’d say, ‘Well draw me up one about so big,’” he said while holding his hands over two feet apart. “She’d drawn it and I’d go out and make one.”
Ernie’s late wife, Dottie Taylor, passed in August of 2019 at the age of 92. He speaks of her with an obvious fondness and keen sense of humor.
“I was married 62 years before I lost my wife,” Ernie said. “We had a terrible personality clash. Terrible. We stayed together because whomever left had to take the kids. So, we just stuck it out.”
He counts everything in cheeseburgers
Ernie was born just before the start of the Great Depression, which gave him a perspective few can still appreciate.
“I came up through that Depression and there was times when we didn’t hardly have enough to eat,” Ernie told The Reporter. “Later, I lied about my age and joined the Army. I was in Italy when I was just 17 years old. Those two things taught me to keep my life simple and whatever you do, be damned sure you’re able to eat.”
That perspective has led Ernie to value simple things.
“I remember on time all me and my sister had to eat was parched corn. Thank God for that – it will keep you alive – but you don’t want to eat that the rest of your life,” Ernie said. “So I count everything in cheeseburgers. Everybody tells me I need a new car or I need a new truck. I think about how many cheeseburgers that would buy you. I’d rather have the cheeseburgers!”
Simple joys
Ernie said he has honestly been very successful in life, but he places no value on “fancy things.”
“I’m just happy with who I am and what I’ve got,” Ernie said. “That’s what my dad used to tell us in the Depression. We didn’t have a damn thing. We didn’t even have shoes to wear. He’d say, ‘Be happy with who you are and what you’ve got.’ That didn’t mean a thing back in those days, but it means everything in my adult age because I’m just a happy man.”
It is a lesson he tried to pass along to visitors.
“I tell everybody when they have young people in here, ‘Queen Elizabeth and Donald Trump ain’t no better off than I am,’” he said. “I’ve got a place to eat and sleep. I’ve got transportation. I’ve got doctors’ care. I eat three meals a day. Ain’t nobody any better off than I am. I’m super rich. That’s the way I feel about things. It’s a simple life, but it’s a good life.”
He said the only bad habit he has left is a fondness for chewing tobacco.
“That’s probably not the healthiest thing in the world, but it’s kept me going longer than most people get to go. At my age, still living by myself, I’ve got my hands and my feet, I can still walk, I still like to look at them pretty girls,” Ernie said. “I’m good.”
Ernie ended The Reporter’s visit by reciting a poem about a man from another era who lived in Tennessee and was worrying about getting old.
I’s been fretting about the future and things I’s been told
about what happens to us folks when we go to getting old.
So I took a little trip to the eastern part of the state
and gazed at all that pretty scenery until the time was getting late.
Gosh, what beautiful forests, like a rainbow in the sky!
I can’t explain my feelings, but I couldn’t help but cry.
All those beautiful trees. Flowers everywhere.
My heart welled up with praises ‘cause my Lord had put ‘em there.
Now I’s not fretting any longer cause there’s one thing that I see:
If the good Lord made them mountains, He can sure take care of me.
Reporter photos by Stu Clampitt
Excellent article filling in 22 years of driving by gaps as to who is this, what does he do and why?
Wonderful story! We travel that way frequently back and forth to Chicago and always admire his art. Thank you for letting us learn more about it!
The moment I met Ernie and Dottie I knew it was more than the sculptures that drew me to that farmhouse.
Over the years I’d stop from time to time when I was in the area.
Ernie sang for us on occasion while playing his home made uke.
Cigar box uke if I remember.
I shared a few of my own songs and we’ve always felt welcome and remembered there.
Thanks for the great article.
Ernie and Dottie have been close friends of my husband and me for many years. Everyone that meets him, walks away with a new and valued friend. He’s never known a stranger. What a Renaissance Man, but he prefers to be known as “the Hoosier Hillbilly With a Hobby.”
I worked with Ernie for years. Ernie and Dot were quite the twosome. They have more friends than you can shake a stick at. Ernie has always been the real deal. Proud to call him my friend.
What a wonderful article. I am so proud to have known Ernie he was a great friend.