Annette Trudy White's O God (Baha I Prayers)

III – LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – 50’s / 60’s
O God, refresh and gladden my spirit. Purify my heart. Illumine my powers. I lay all my affairs in Thy hand. Thou art my Guide and my Refuge… (A prayer from Baha’i Prayers) In California, Freddy began working for the post office. Trudy was a talented seamstress, who made and altered clothes for different clients, her daughters, other family members and friends. She also did piece work for a large clothing manufacturer at home. Her four children were born in Los Angeles: Frederick LuShon White, Jr. (Aug. 12, 1952), Annette Trudy White (Sept. 4, 1953), Nancy Susan White (April 3, 1955) (all born at the Japanese American Hospital in East Los Angeles, CA) and Phillip Jamal White (March 12, 1964) (at Kaiser Permanente Hospital, Hollywood, CA).
Phillip was her surprise baby. Her granddaughter ZaKiya remembers the family saying Trudy walked around the house for weeks in denial saying, “I can’t be pregnant.” Her mother, Isabel, told her this is your baby, your pumpkin. Nancy was displaced as the baby of the family when she was nine years old and became a middle child. Though Nancy was a self-described daddy’s girl, her daddy was not always nice to her. According to Annette’s daughter ZaKiya, her grandfather would

It was a financial and industrial giant by the 1950’s assembling cars, stitching clothes, making tires and furniture. There were also the better known motion pictures, radio programs and television shows. Financing of tract houses by the Federal Housing Administration created a construction boom. Los Angles spread out with the building of freeways in the 1940’s and as the local street car system went out of business. Then the automobile took precedence along with all the problems this dependence produced. Cars along with the bus system contributed to the severe air pollution that the city became famous