Jimmy Bartle Taylor PassesAway at 83

Margaret “Jimmy” Bartle Taylor, daughter of Alpha Phi Omega Past National President H. Roe Bartle (serving from 1931-1946), passed away Friday, July 4, 2008 after suffering a fall at a friend’s home in Kansas City.

Taylor was 83.

Taylor, from Fort Worth, Texas, was stopping in Kansas City to visit friends on her way to the H. Roe Bartle Scout Reservation in Osceola, Missouri. Taylor planned on attending a dedication ceremony for a new Scout council, which was being named after her father, H. Roe Bartle.

After her father’s death in 1974, it became Taylor’s mission to share her father’s legacy and continue his relationship with both APO and the Boy Scout community. Taylor made it a point to attend APO National Conventions and events over the course of her life, as well as spend many summers traveling to the Bartle Reservation to speak about Scout traditions and her father, whom many knew as “The Chief” or Chief Lone Bear.

H. Roe Bartle was founder and scouting advisor of APO’s Iota Chapter of Park College in Parkville, Missouri and the second National President of APO. During his term as President, Bartle assisted the Fraternity in its growth from 18 chapters at the start of his term 1931, to 109 chapters when he stepped down as National President in 1946. It is based on these numbers that Bartle was credited with expanding the national reach of APO.

Margaret “Jimmy” Bartle Taylor was the only child to parents H. Roe Bartle (born 1901, died 1974) and Margaret Raines Bartle (born 1904, died 1987). Taylor was preceded in death by her husband John James Taylor, who died in 1993. She leaves behind three daughters, five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.