Costa Mesa resident Doris Taylor-Foster turns 100

Costa Mesa resident Doris Taylor-Foster, who has lived in the city since 1942, turned 100 years old on Monday.

A small group of family members, including Taylor-Foster’s children, John Taylor and Evelyn Taylor-Johnson, gathered outside of the dining facility at Mesa Verde Convalescent Hospital to sing “Happy Birthday” to Taylor-Foster.

Inside, a big birthday cake could be pictured, and Taylor-Foster held a sign that read, “I Did It! 100 Years.”

Hitting the century mark was a goal for Taylor-Foster.

“Her grandparents that lived in New York lived to be 97 and 98,” Evelyn Taylor-Johnson said, “and she always thought it would be fun, when she was getting older and older, to live to be 100. That was her goal ... She has such a strong faith. Mom’s gone through pneumonia and all kinds of things, but she just fought back. She’s made it.”

Doris Taylor-Foster stays active at Mesa Verde by playing Bingo and Uno, and she enjoys sing-alongs. She makes FaceTime calls with John and Evelyn on Fridays, and with her daughter, Vicki, who lives in Arizona, on Sundays.

“She was just the old-fashioned mom that was the stay-at-home mom,” Evelyn Taylor-Johnson said. “However, she was involved in all of our activities. She loved people.”

Born on June 29, 1920 in Missoula, Mont., Doris and her family eventually moved to Laguna Beach when she was in high school. She met Ralph Albert Taylor, who was 20 years older than her, but they were married in February 1938.

They moved to Costa Mesa in 1942, buying three acres on Pacific Avenue overlooking the Santa Ana River bed as part of the “Goat Hill” community. During World War II, they worked at the Santa Ana Air Base.

After the war, Ralph started the Laguna Beach Ready-Mix Co. while Doris was a stay-at-home mom for four children, also including Sherrill, who died from appendicitis.

Over the years, Doris Taylor-Foster was a longtime member of the First United Methodist Church, a 4-H leader and a youth baseball coach in Harbor Area Baseball for John, who went on to play baseball at Cal State Fullerton in the late 1960s.

When Ralph retired, she went to work for May Co. in the yardage department at the newly opened South Coast Plaza. She later worked at Westbrook Yardage in Fashion Island and Newport Stationers.

Ralph passed away in 1983, and Doris married Warren Foster, a former high school acquaintance who she saw again at their 60th high school reunion, in 2000. The Fosters ran a gold leaf pottery business out of their Costa Mesa home on Canyon Drive.

Doris and Warren were married for five years before he passed away.

Doris loved to drive on family vacations. Her family currently also consists of eight grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren and two great-great grandchildren.

“Even when she gets sick, the comment is, ‘I don’t want to die,’” John Taylor said. “I think she just wants to live forever. She is so afraid of dying that she’s going to stay living.”

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