Gay LeCleire Taylor walks the beach collecting detritus, sends plastic toys to thrift shops, but keeps the shovels
MARSHALLVILLE — Thousands of tourists discard plastic waste or leave behind cheap toys after a trip to the beach, where if left untouched they will wash into the ocean.
But these forgotten toys and trash stand little chance against beachcomber and collector Gay LeCleire Taylor.
She walks the ranger-patrolled beaches of Corson’s Inlet State Park in search of buckets, beach toys and, most importantly, shovels. They go straight into her collection, which now numbers 483 colorful digging tools.
LeCleire Taylor grew up in Wallingford, Pa., but has strong ties to Ocean City. Her mother grew up on the island, graduating from Ocean City High School, and her parents had a second home in the Gardens neighborhood. Her aunt taught biology at OCHS for 30 years before she retired in 1970. LeCleire Taylor said the island was “a second home” for her, where she would spend weekends and summers by the beach.
She said her family always walked and cleaned the beach during their stays. Of all of the items she found, one in particular caught her fancy.
LeCleire Taylor does not know what drew her to the shovels, but she remembers one of the first ones she picked up was from Gay Toys Inc. and although she did not take that as a sign, she thought it was humorous that she shared a name with the company that made the shovel.
“I threw out the trash. If there were other plastic toys, I put them in a bin. And over the years, my husband and I have cleaned them up and given them to the Goodwill shops at the shore so they could sell them to kids or families … I still just kept the shovels for some reason,” LeCleire Taylor said.
For more than 30 years, she worked as a director and curator for the Museum of American Glass at the Wheaton Arts and Cultural Center in Millville. After her retirement in 2009, she started making the commute to walk the beach.
“I collect driftwood, I collect shells. I make driftwood reeves; I make shell mirrors and shell frames … somehow the shovels caught my eye. I don’t know why,” she said.
Being a museum curator, she started to document the companies that made the shovels on her computer. After she grew her collection, she began displaying them in her connector. She keeps a chalkboard to count the number of whole shovels she has collected since her retirement.
People also give her shovels that they have found on the beach, and though she takes them, they are never allowed to be included in her count. She has personally collected the 483 shovels in her collection since her retirement.
Skipping the island’s busy season, LeCleire Taylor, who lives in Marshallville in Upper Township, walks the beach only in the off-season, from late fall to spring. She is fond of being the only person on the beach, which is the case during her late winter walks; when snow is falling, she normally has the beach all to herself.
Corson’s Inlet State Park is her beach of choice to walk and collect. She does haphazardly walk the beaches by the Gardens or up toward the Northend bridge, but “the bulk have all been from the southern tip of Ocean City.”
If she walked in the summer, her collecting would be too easy as there would be many forgotten shovels left behind. Her theory is that the shovels float out into the sea, and after a storm or high tide, wash up on the beach again. After one storm, she picked up 27 shovels.
She said she checks tide charts so she can walk the beaches at low tide. Though LeCleire Taylor has not been as consistent with her beach walking, she will do it about two times a week when she is collecting.
“I’d be lucky sometimes if I go out to find one anymore because the beaches are so clean. Which is a good thing — it’s sad for my collecting but it’s a good thing because the beaches are really clean, even in the winter,” LeCleire Taylor said.
Her walks include picking up trash; she said more than anything else, she finds plastic lids from drinks. For the other forgotten toys, she picks them up, washes them and waits until she has a good amount before donating them to a local thrift store.
She is not surprised by the amount of trash or forgotten toys she finds but is upset by the plastic bags and long strings of ribbons from balloons that litter the beach. She thinks Ocean City “does a real effort to keep the beaches clean,” referencing the beach cleaning machines.
“I’m hoping that people are more conscious of those kinds of things and care about keeping the beach clean,” she said.
By JOELLE CARR/For the Sentinel