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- Posted: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 12:00 am
By BRUCE LEE SMITH/VALLEY MORNING STAR
LYFORD - E.H. Trolinger loved to teach. It was what he did. It was who he was.
Wherever life's paths took him, it always brought E.H. back to teaching.
"He just loved the sharing of knowledge," said his son, Jim Trolinger.
But E.H. spent most of his career as a school administrator.
"He was a natural at it," said his daughter, Diane Lassig. "But he got so much fulfillment out of teaching those kids."
Enoch Harrison Trolinger Jr. was born Sept. 7, 1924, in Barberton, Ohio, the second child of Enoch H. and Nelle Trolinger. Their daughter, Nancy Carolyn, was 11 years his senior.
The family soon moved to Tulsa, Okla. E.H.'s father and his uncle were partners in a drug store in Wagoner, just outside Tulsa.
Courtesy photo
An even more youthful E.H. stands outside a drug store in 1931.
E.H. graduated from Tulsa Central High School in May 1942 and, two days later, joined the military, along with all the boys from his senior class.
"It was just six months after Pearl Harbor," Jim said. "They didn't all join the same branch, but they all signed up for the service."
E.H. chose the U.S. Army. He had completed infantry training when he suffered a massive hernia. While he underwent surgery, his unit shipped out for Europe.
Hernia or not, the army had a use for E.H. He spent the rest of the war teaching marksmanship at Camp Maxie, just north of Paris, Texas. He'd learned to shoot as a boy on hunting trips with his dad.
Things didn't go as well for his buddies. They ended up at the Battle of the Bulge, where 30 percent of them were killed.
"He considered himself very lucky," Jim said.
After the war, E.H. graduated from the University of Tulsa with a degree in sociology.
By then, multiple sclerosis had forced his father into retirement. Upon graduating, E.H. moved to Raymondville, joining his parents and sister, who had moved earlier seeking a warm, moist climate for E.H. Sr.
In 1948, E.H. began his career in education as principal at Lyford High School. In his mid-20s at the time, pictures from that era show a young man who looked the same age as the students around him.
In the family scrapbook is a picture of him handing a diploma to his daughter's future father-in-law.
"They were that close in age," Diane said.
Jim said some people kept trying to set E.H. up with Katy, the home economics teacher, but they just didn't click.
Instead, he met Evangeline Johnson, the daughter of Swedish immigrants, when she served as a chaperone on a school field trip. They married on his birthday in 1951.
The Johnsons were farmers and E.H. thought he would give it a try.
"I just don't think he was cut out to be a farmer," Jim said. "I don't think he enjoyed it that much."
After 12 years, E.H. got back into the school business as a middle school science teacher.
For three years, he did both, devoting his summers to the farm.
"He had a real zeal for teaching science," Diane said.
But teachers back then made even less than today. Jim said that his father was probably happiest in the classroom. However, he wanted to earn more and began working his way back up the career ladder.
He took a job as the high school counselor and sold the farm. He spent the next three summers driving back and forth to Kingsville while he worked on his master's degree.
As busy as he was at work, E.H. kept going at home as well.
"As a kid, I remember my dad always had these little projects going - but they always got to be big," Diane said.
Instead of just a simple train set, it ended up spread out with a town and buildings, trees and tunnels.
"He had a tendency to do things that way," she said.
When he got interested in photography, E.H. built his own darkroom.
E.H. ended up with an incredible set of tools and was always willing to loan them out.
Diane said he got as much enjoyment out of loaning them out as he did making his own things.
If he wasn't tinkering, E.H. was reading. He devoted an entire room in the house to his books.
"He could do almost anything," Diane said. "And, if not, he would read a book and learn how."
One thing he had no use for was games. But Vangie loved them.
"My mother and I loved jigsaw puzzles and we always had one going," Diane said. "He hated them. " He thought it was just a waste of time."
He and Vangie loved to spend summers in Colorado. It drove him nuts that Vangie and Diane would stay inside doing puzzles instead of enjoying the beautiful scenery.
During his 21 years with the Lyford Consolidated Independent School District, E.H. was also an elementary school principal, curriculum director, federal programs director and superintendent for 10 years.
From Lyford, he went to Harlingen as director of secondary education, and later became assistant superintendent.
His next stop was San Perlita, where he served as superintendent for four years before retiring.
Vangie retired the same spring after working 23 years with Lyford CISD.
Off campus, he was a longtime member and elder of the First Christian Church of Raymondville, a church his father helped found.
A Boy Scout troop master, E.H. organized the first trip for Rio Grande Valley scouts to the Philmont Scout Camp in New Mexico. It was 1968, and Jim remembers that they visited Hemisfair, the World's Fair in San Antonio.
Though a crack shot, Jim said E.H. wasn't that enthusiastic a hunter.
"I think he mainly went on hunting trips for the time he got to spend with me," Jim said.
What he and Vangie truly enjoyed was traveling after their retirement.
"They had a travel trailer and went everywhere," Jim said.
Their journeys also took them overseas, Diane said.
A degenerative nerve disease slowed E.H., eventually confining him to a wheelchair.
Vangie cared for him until she developed cancer and passed away in 2004. E.H. moved into an assisted living facility.
"It was hard on him, after being such an active person, to have people always doing things for him," Diane said.
Jim said the funeral was filled with the teachers and former students from his career.
Person after person told Jim of how E.H. had helped them.
"It's nice to know that your father had such a positive effect on so many people," he said.
U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men
Name: Enoch Harrison Trolinger
Gender: Male
Race: White
Age: 21
Relationship to Draftee: Self (Head)
Birth Date: 7 Sep 1924
Birth Place: Barberton, Ohio, USA
Residence Place: Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
Registration Date: 4 Feb 1946
Registration Place: Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
Employer: Discharged Army
Height: 5 11
Weight: 175
Complexion: Ruddy
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Blue
Next of Kin: Nelle G Trolinger
Household Members Age Relationship
Enoch Harrison Trolinger 22 Self (Head)
Nelle G Trolinger Mother
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1924 - 2008 (83 years)
