Unless one has had children she can’t know the joy that comes from having a family. Along with these joys came challenges too, but for me, the joys far outweigh the challenges.
Our boys came along pretty fast, although we had been married 4 ½ years before our first was born. I had a miscarriage in 1948 when we were seniors in college, and we were both sorry to lose the baby. My doctor was afraid it had been a tubal pregnancy. They did exploratory surgery, but that wasn’t the case. I was out of school for several weeks but still make it to graduation.
We moved from Albuquerque to Phoenix in 1950 after Jim’s first promotion with GMAC, and soon after we moved I became pregnant. James Bruce (Jimmy in early years) was born January 13 1951. After that the boys were born pretty close together - Jay Michael on October 2, 1952, Mark Randall on February 14, 1954, and Lee Roy Franklin on November 9, 1956. Even thought the dates are not exactly 18 months, when some on asks about the dates, I just round it off to that time.
The first challenge came along with the joy of having a big (8lb 14 oz) baby boy. Jimmy had colic, and it seemed nothing I could do would soothe him. I’d walk the floors with him, feed him, and rock him. Then when Jim came home from work and I handed the baby to him, he immediately would calm down and go to sleep in his arms. This went on for about 3 months but finally things straightened out. Another challenge came when Jimmy was about 7 or 8 months old. He would cry and cry when we put him to bed, and would not settle down. We’d pat him, pick him up for a while, put him down again, and he’d break out crying again. Finally our next-door neighbor, having heard the crying each night, suggested we let him cry it out. We tried this and after 2 or 3 nights, he when right off to sleep.
The next challenge came when Jay was born. No one told me for a while what I had, girl or boy, and then they didn’t bring him to me till the next morning. It turned out that he had come so quickly and had such broad shoulders, that his collarbone was broken. They had it all bandaged up when the nurse brought him to me, but again, there was that wonderful joy of having a big (9 lb) baby boy. At 6 weeks old, when we went to the doctor, his collarbone was completely healed.
We thought we had prepared Jimmy for the new baby, but he began to throw little tantrums when something didn’t go his way – and especially when I was busy with Jay. Rather than scold him or spank him, I’d just walk out of the room and let him carry on. Those episodes soon stopped.
The next promotion and move came in November 1952, when Jay was not quite 2 months old. We make the trip to El Paso Texas, with Jimmy, 22 months old, Jay the baby, and a cocker spaniel puppy, newly acquired. Jim had rented a house for us. GMAC, fortunately, packed for me, moved us and unpacked everything in the new place.
Christmas was near, so I found the decoration and put up a tree. Jim hadn’t connected the clothes dryer yet, so I was hanging lots of diapers out each day. When I can back in the house, I discovered the tree turned over, and many of the little glass ornaments broken. Now, who was I going to blame – the dog Taffy or the 23-month-old toddler? I cleaned up the glass and when Jim came home, we put the tree up again, but this time in the playpen!
We bought a new house on Honeysuckle Drive, moved and I soon found out I was pregnant. (We went by the house this year - 2011 – and it looks very much the same.) We finally made friends with a number of young couples at church (congregation of 500), and when I was about due, the ladies at church gave me a shower. I received over 30 dresses and frilly outfits. They were all hoping I’d have a girl.
We were invited to a bridge party on February 13, 1954, but about 10:00 or so, I began to feel funny, called my doctor and he said to head for the hospital. Mark was born at 12:30 am on February 14, weighing in at 9 lb. 6 oz. So – here was another healthy baby, a real joy and my Valentine all of his life.
Jim again received a promotion and we moved to Denver, Colorado in the fall of 1954. We rented a house in a suburb of Denver, Englewood, and settled in with our 3 boys. It snowed and the boys were so excited having never seen snow. I bundled them up in snow suits (given to us by church members whose children has outgrown them) and we went out to play. I have a picture of us in the driveway, with me pulling them on a sled. Fun!
Jim’s mother came to visit us in February (she was still working) and on Mark’s one-year birthday, she got to see him take his first steps – a joy for all of us. We have a picture of him walking towards her with her arms out to catch him.
We moved to a rent house on Dale Ct in Denver and the boys had fun riding tricycles on a big concrete patio which covered a double car garage.
Not too long after we moved, I was again pregnant. As winter 1955 approached, I did a lot of shoveling snow so the boys could play out on that big patio. On November 9, we had quite a big snow and that caused things to happen pretty fast. We make it to the hospital ( I had called Jim from work) and Lee was born at 12:30 pm, weighing 8lb 13 oz. I called my mother soon after he was born and she was on her way to help with the new baby. Now we had a wonderful family of four healthy boys. The challenge was to raise them to become good Christians, good citizens, and kind and caring individuals.
We had a lot of help along the way in raising these boys. They were all active in sports at one time or another, and for the most part their coaches were good Christian examples in their coaching. Jay, especially, had a football coach in junior high who helped Jay and really brought him along in many ways.
There were also some good Bible School teachers who helped mold the boys’ characters. I’m thinking especially of a teacher of Jimmy’s in Denver who would tell me how much she appreciated him, and what a good example he was in class.
The boys were all baptized in their early teens ( I think Mark was the youngest when baptized, and Lee was the oldest.)
The boys also displayed roles of leadership and good citizenship at an early age. Even in elementary school in Denver, the boys were looked up to. When we moved to Kansas City, Mark’s 5th grade class had a party for him, and presented him with a very nice watch. In junior high in their Raytown School District, Jay was elected Student Body President and Mark was elected the Vice President.
Jim (Jr.) had begun his interest in music when he was about six. I started to give him piano lessons but soon realized he really had a musical talent and ear for music, so I obtained a very good teacher who had been recommended. He was chosen to sing in the Denver All 6th Grade Choir (a few from each school) and I ran across the records of this not long ago.
Now I must tell you that these boys were not perfect. They had their spats and my way of dealing with those was a spanking when they were little. As they grew older, I’d send them to separate rooms, and when they decided they could get along, they could come out. Jim’s method was a little different. When they were fairly young, he bought 2 pairs of boxing gloves and had them “duke” it out in the basement. (I didn’t want to watch!)I think they learned rather quickly that the spats were not worth it.
If something more serious happened, Jim took care of it another way and we might have been arrested (in later years) for child and endangerment. I can remember one instance that caused “Granny Great” to shed tears. We were visiting her in K.C. and Lee must have been around 5 or so. Jim’s mother had fixed a good dinner, and it included an eggplant casserole. Our policy was that the boys would eat one teaspoon of any dish on the table. If they didn’t like it, they didn’t have to eat anymore of it. Lee decided he didn’t want to eat the bite Jim had put on his plate, so Jim took him to the bedroom and we could hear the spanking. They came out, but Lee was still not going to eat the bite. So – back he and his dad went to the bedroom. This happened three times. After the second time, Jim’s mother had tears running down her cheeks. I can’t remember exactly how it all ended but I do remember Lee sitting at the table for a long, long time.
Later as the boys became adults and as they were married, we’d be sitting around the table and the boys would begin to reminisce about their growing-up years. Incidents would come up that Jim and I had no idea had happened, and they were quite the eye-openers.
So – as you can see (yes, I admit I am prejudiced) our boys were regular boys and had their very good traits, but also had a ways to go as they were growing up.
My challenge, as they were growing up was to raise them to be independent and not be attached to my “apron springs.” There’s a fine line between this independence, and not causing them to be to distant from their mother. I don’t really know whether I accomplished this balance, but for the most part, I guess I did. Someone asked me one time how it felt to be this “queen bee” in the house with these boys and a husband, and my reply was, “It feels wonderful!” I give a lot of credit to Jim, Sr. because he has always treated me with a great deal of love and respect.
As the boys grew older, they knew that college was in their future. It just happened that Jim, Jr., because his two front teeth protruded had braces before we left Denver, and the orthodontist was a great person to talk to Jim and tell him just what he was doing. So – the boys got the idea that they would all be dentists, form the Trotter Dental Clinic, and each do a different branch of dentistry. This never came to pass but it pointed them for sure to college and beyond.
The college Jim, Jr and we chose was Harding University (College at that time) and the boys each followed Jim there. The challenge was to pay for college, as several would be there at the same time. The boys worked many jobs as they were growing up and each summer, as they were in college. They sold Bibles and religious materials in the south. This helped tremendously with expenses. The professors and atmosphere at Harding were a good influence on our boys, as it gave them a few more years to strengthen their Christian values.
I’ll write more of later years in another chapter, but these years, from boys’ birth till they left home were entirely too short. I look back on those years with a great deal of joy and bselieve we met most of the challenges in a good way.
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