Somewhere in there, I lost count.

Annie Taylor, age 94, was telling me about her kids. She has given birth to 19 children. 

Yes, you read that correctly.

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Nineteen.

All carried to term.

So Taylor started listing their names — first name and middle — and the years they were born.

“Willie Noble was born in 1948,” she said. “Mae Ruth was born in 1949. Then came Robert Earl. He was the last one I had at home. After that, they made me go to the hospital.

“Then came Mary Katherine; she was born in 1951. Then came Johnnie, 1953. We call him ‘Hard Time.’ Then it was Joe Roy, then Cornelius, then Clyde. And then it was, let me see — it was Walker Lee. And then Tommy, yes, Tommy, he was next.”

Taylor rattled off the names patiently, with a smile. She sat in her favorite chair — the chair I was warned not to sit in — and patted Gangster, her French Bulldog, as she spoke.

“I had seven straight boys after Mary Katherine,” she said. “Did I give you the names of seven straight boys?”

No, just six.

“Oh, I know,” she said. “I had a boy I lost between ‘Hard Time’ and Joe.”

Taylor counts this boy as one of her 19 children. He was one of three who were stillborn.

Calkins: Say a prayer for MLGW. Or maybe for those who depend on it?

“Of course I count him,” she said. “I never named him but he was my son.”

So that made seven straight boys. Until Margaret and Maggie arrived. But by now, I was losing track.

“You ain’t writing all of them down!” said Taylor, and she was right about that.

Then she laughed and laughed.

‘The greatest of the greatest’

Annie Ruth Taylor is the most interesting woman in Memphis.

What, you have another candidate?

Pshaw.

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Start with the house. On Miller Street, in South Memphis. It’s a nondescript, brown house except for the green. There is so much green! Bright, bursting green! On the shutters, and the porch, and the tall fence that runs along the street. Even the big tree out front is painted with a bright swatch of green.

“I painted my bedroom green,” Taylor said. “And the kitchen is green. I guess I just like green.”

Besides, it conjures the nickname of her third (and last) husband.

“Big Green,” she said. “That’s what everyone called him.”

Why?

“I was always working. I never minded working. And I was always having children, one a year, every year.”

Annie Taylor

“Because he was big!” she said.

At which point, Johnnie (child No. 5) chimed in.

“And he was always carrying green,” he said.

So that explains the house. The life, well, that is a longer, more complicated tale.

Taylor was born on a former plantation in Mississippi and followed her first husband to the big city of Memphis in 1948, arriving with one child in her arms and another on the way.

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She found work cleaning white people’s houses, earning $3 a day plus bus fare.

“I was always working,” she said. “I never minded working. And I was always having children, one a year, every year.”

Taylor had 13 boys and six girls with three different husbands, all of whom have died. Thirteen of the 19 children are still alive.

“My daddy used to tell me, ‘They’d be glad to have you back in the slave days because you kept having all those boys,’ ” she said. “They’d have sold all my boys.”

Taylor is right, of course. Her bluntness is a reminder that it wasn’t so long ago.

“My grandfather was sold,” she said. “I was born on 250 acres that the master gave my great-grandfather when he was freed. I picked cotton growing up. Sometimes, when I couldn’t find work in Memphis, I’d go pick cotton in Arkansas. I know how to work a field.”

It was hard, of course it was. Some of Taylor’s stories can be difficult to hear. She buried one of her stillborn babies in a shoebox where she was living at the time. Because she wasn’t going to allow him to be cremated at the hospital. Another time, when things got particularly difficult, she left two of her children with other women to help raise.

“They told me I could get ‘em back when things got better,” Taylor said. “But then those ladies changed their minds. So they never did send them back to me. But the girl came back on her own, when she was nine. The boy never did. But he visits me now! Yes, he still does.”

It feels like everyone visits these days. The green house is the busiest house on an increasingly desolate street.

Taylor lives with her son, Johnnie, and his wife. Three great-grandchildren live in the house, too.

Calkins: She has worked at Gould’s for 68 years. But that’s not the most remarkable part of her tale.

“Y’all come out,” Taylor called to the three on a recent afternoon. Out came Ferlundo (age 15), LaBrandon (age 15) and Ferlundo (age 14).

Yes, there were two Ferlundos. Brothers. Ferlundo the third and Ferlundo the fourth.

But hey, with so many children — with so many names — repetition seems inevitable.

Which gets us to the question: How many grandchildren are there anyway? And how many great-grandchildren?

“They counted 54 grandchildren,” said Taylor, who didn’t seem inclined to do the math herself. It’s hard, when the numbers get that big.

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“I counted 124 great-grandchildren, but I know I got more than that,” she continued. “Of course, that doesn’t count the great-great grandchildren. I got a lot of those, too.”

And they’re all welcome. Everyone has always been welcome.

“I ain’t got the sense to turn down nobody,” Taylor said. “Because once upon a time, I didn’t have nowhere to stay. So now I just tell everybody, ‘Come on in.’ ”

By way of evidence, a man named Harry Taylor joined the conversation. He isn’t related to Annie Taylor, as far as anyone knows. But his mother was one of Annie Taylor’s best friends.

“She’s my hero,” he said. “She had all them kids and then she had the nerve to take in folks like me. My mother died in 1980, and Annie has been my mother ever since.”

Geoff Calkins talks about Jennifer Biggs, James Taylor and shifting from sports

Taylor brightens at the compliment. Just as she brightened when I — totally unannounced — first knocked on her door. I was told about her by a reader but couldn’t reach anyone on the phone.

So I knocked and introduced myself.

“Nice to meet you!” she said.

We sat and talked for more than two hours, over the course of the next few days. It was impossible not to be charmed.

Taylor on what she likes to do these days: “Play poker.”

“Actually, the way I feel now, I say I’m living on my mother’s time. She died young, at 26. So I’m just living on her time.”

Annie Taylor

Wait, what?

Play poker with whom?

“Anyone who wants to sit with her and lose their money,” said Harry Taylor, the godson.

Taylor on whether she watches TV: “Yes, I like cowboy movies. And Jerry Springer. I miss him. He died the other day.”

Taylor on alcohol: “I used to drink Canadian Mist. Now I drink wine. I drink a wine called Stella. They say it’s good for my blood.”

Calkins: Jennifer Biggs brought us together for lunch again. Even though she was stuck in a hospital room.

Taylor on the secret to a long life: “My children. And friends. If I didn’t have them, I think I’d just die.”

Taylor’s grandmother lived to 104 and her great-grandfather lived to 110. That may be part of the secret, too.

“My brother died when he was 96,” she said. “That’s what I’m fighting to get to, now. Ain’t going to worry about my grandma and great-grandpa. That’s too far away. Actually, the way I feel now, I say I’m living on my mother’s time. She died young, at 26. So I’m just living on her time.”

Taylor told her family she didn’t want a birthday party this year. Happily, they ignored her. And on July 12, roughly 400 friends and relatives (mostly relatives) gathered on Miller Street to toast Taylor’s 94 years.

During the course of the celebration, someone came up with an idea: Why not try to get a section of the street named after her?

Calkins: I’ve covered Memphis sports for 27 years. Now it’s time for something else.

“She’s the oldest living member of the community,” said Harry Taylor. “Everybody in this community knows her. If you don’t know Annie Taylor, you’re not from around here.”

Annie isn’t about to lobby for the honor or anything. But doesn’t it make some sense? The woman doesn’t have much money and has never been elected to public office. But she’s lived a life worth celebrating.

“She’s the greatest of the greatest,” said Harry Taylor. “She really is. And I don’t know how street-naming works, but I bet we could get you some signatures.”