Carter Page Johnson Trotter, Jr., was born on April 4, 1899 in Whitewright, Texas. His father, also named Carter Page Johnson Trotter, was born in 1858 in Virginia. His mother, Mary Bell Beatrice Pritchett, was born in 1869 in Texas. His parents married in Savoy, TX, on March 18, 1894. They had two children. His older brother Wesley Asbury Trotter was born in 1896. His father had attended the Virginia Military Institute in the Class of 1885. He was a teacher.
On May 31, 1900, just seven weeks after his first brithday, his father died at the age of forty-two when the house burned down.
After this tragic death widowed mother and children moved to Wichita Falls, TX, to live with her parents at 1510 15th Street. His maternal grandparents were Joseph Addison Pritchett (born in 1843) and Elizabeth Sarah Mallory (born in 1848).
The boys were raised in Wichita Falls, TX, and attended local schools.
In June 1918 he graduated from Wichita Fall High School, where he had become interested in a career as an artist. His illustrations decorated the high school yearbook, which was called The Coyote.
In September of 1918 he began to attend Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX.
On September 12, 1918 he registered with the draft during the Great War for military service. He was recorded to be five-ten, of slender build, with brown eyes and light brown hair. He did not serve in the military because he was a student at the time.
The following year he won a scholarship to attend the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art (P.A.F.A.), so he moved to Philadelphia in September of 1919. There he met another young art student, Priscilla Ruth Parsons. She was born April 11, 1901 in Boston, Massachusetts, where she had previously studied at the Boston Museum Art School.
In the summer of 1924 he won a P.A.F.A. Summer Travel Scholarship, which funded study abroad to visit European Museums. He sailed on June 20, 1924 to England on the Steam Ship Leviathan and returned three months later on September 22, 1924 from France on the same ship.
The following summer in 1925 he again won a P.A.F.A. Summer Travel Scholarship, but on this occasion he was accompanied by Priscilla Parsons. Their departure was noted in The New York Times.
In 1927 he wmoved to New York City to seek his fortune as a free-lance commercial artist. His first sales were pen and ink story illustratiosn to Clues Detective Magazine.
On June 18, 1928 he married Priscilla Parsons in Manhattan Civil Court. They moved to the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens, NY.
In 1930 their son Robert Page Trotter was born.
In 1934 their daughter Priscilla Trotter was born.
Page Trotter supported his family by drawing pen and ink story illustrations for pulp magazines. His illustrations appeared in Action Stories, Blue Book, Brief Stories, Complete Cowboy Novel Magazine, Clues, Exciting Western, Masked Rider Magazine, Popular Western, Short Stories, Texas Rangers, Thrilling Western, Western Aces, and Western Trails.
He also sold illustrations to The Open Road For Boys. He created black and white story illustrations as well as several painted covers. He used the living room at home for his art studio.
As the Great Depression brought hard times he also designed greeting cards.
By 1938 the family had moved to Boston, MA, where they lived at 372 Adams Street.
On June 29, 1946 his wife taught an art class for the 12th Annual Vacation Club at the Flushing Y.M.C.A.
In 1954 he retired from illustration and the family moved to Rockport, MA, where he concentrated on painting seascapes for art galleries. He and his wife joined the Rockport Art Association, which is the oldest such organization on Cape Ann, MA.
In 1958 he and his wife opened the Page & Priscilla Trotter Art Gallery on Bear Skin Neck in Cape Ann, MA, which they operated for nearly fifteen years.
In 1980 the Rockport Art Association named in his honor the Annual Page Trotter Art Award.
Page Trotter died in Rockport, MA, at the age of eighty-seven on February 11, 1987. His wife died the following year on August 7, 1988.
© David Saunders 2013 |
