I entered the world on a cold April morning. At least that’s what my mother said. Well, at first, she said it was a cold day, but over the years her story morphed into a snowy day. I will never know the true circumstances of the weather during my birth, but I’d like to be believe my appearance brought a little light into the world in 1949.
Mama said she wore a heavy coat to our doctor’s office and delivered me in his small office building. We lived in a rural area, and his office had two hospital beds for mothers-to-be in the community. My birth was quite different from my sister’s coming into the world. She was born in a bedroom in my grandmother’s house, delivered by a country doctor who believed in using ether. Mama didn’t know she was in the world for hours.
Four years later, she wanted a different experience and a different doctor. She wanted to be awake, with my father by her side. My father was present for each of our births, which was quite unusual then. Usually, fathers were relegated to a waiting area (exit stage left) where they remained and paced the floor while their wives labored. But there he was, my father, holding Mama’s hand all through the delivery.
Then came the time to fill out my birth certificate. My mother wanted to name me Merry Carol. I guess she was a bit preoccupied with post-partum exhaustion and a red-faced, red-haired crying newborn. She let Daddy take care of filling out my birth certificate.
Daddy took care of the birth certificate all right. He named me Bobbie Carroll – Bobbie after my mother and Carroll after…after whom? What brought that on? Did he secretly want a son? It was years later, after my father passed away and my mother moved to an assisted living facility, that my sister and I sorted through papers in their desk. We found an old receipt from “Carroll’s Furniture Store.” Did that sheet of paper somehow inspire my father to give me my name? The dated receipt had been under papers, in the bottom of a desk drawer, for over fifty years.
Little did my father know the confusion his decision would cause in my life. There was no kindergarten in our school in 1954. My mother and my sister taught me to read, write, and spell before I started first grade. I also learned something else: to spell my name C-a-r-o-l, which was the way my mother wanted me to write my name. And Carol stayed with me from first grade to twelfth grade.
I look back and wonder: Why did my mother spell my name wrong? Why didn’t she correct my spelling or inform my teachers? Surely, the teachers saw my birth certificate when my parents enrolled me in school. I think it was a passive-aggressive technique for spelling my name the way she wanted it spelled. Why didn’t my father object?
As for me, I gave up. It was a useless, endless fight. My teachers spelled my name Carol. It was printed on twelve years of report cards. Even in all of my yearbooks, my name is spelled wrong. I tried to spell it correctly in high school, but people continued to misspell it, as so many do even now. When I attend class reunions, on my name tag, my name is spelled Carol. I draw a line through Carol and spell my name correctly. I sometimes wonder if my former classmates think I’m being hoity-toity, that maybe I’m a writer living under my pen name.
Toward the end of my senior year in high school, I went into the office to see my principal, Walter Gunter. I will always remember him and appreciate his kindness.
I asked, “Mr. Gunter, can I please have my name spelled correctly on my diploma?”
He responded right away, “It’s already taken care of.”
Over the years, my name has been misspelled in so many ways: Karol, Caroll, Carole, Carrol, Carolyn, and a few other creative ones. The topper was the time I received a piece of official mail addressed to “Carnal Taylor.”
Through all my past years of school and work, I have met only one or two women named Carroll. Usually, I see it used only as a surname. I cannot possibly count the number of times I’ve received (and continue to receive) mail for Mr. Carroll Taylor.
For me, the origin of Carroll will continue to be a mystery. Was I named after a furniture store? One thing is for sure: I will never find my name on keychains or trinkets for sale in a tourist shop, but I will always be the woman my father named.