First baby: Carol Trautman’s 1946 birth at Kadlec comes full circle with donation

Carol Trautman’s birth Jan. 1, 1946, at Kadlec Regional Medical Center (known then as Kadlec Hospital) to Edward and Elizabeth Taylor was heralded by a full-page newspaper ad and gifts from local merchants including spark plugs, bacon, milk, grape juice, a shoeshine kit and Ivory soap flakes. 

She was the first baby of the year, born into a country recovering from World War II.

Her mother framed the newspaper clipping and kept it for her entire life. In 2025, Trautman donated the framed newspaper ad to the Kadlec Birth Center.

“I feel like it is now back home,” Trautman said. “It has come full circle.”

Trautman’s brief fame as the first baby of the year was significant for her parents. The couple had moved from Tennessee to Eastern Washington in pursuit of work. Her father accepted a welding job at what is now the Handford Nuclear Reservation to, as the newspaper put it, “help America win the war and preserve the peace that followed”. They didn’t know a soul when they arrived.

Then along she came. The newspaper declared her a “chubby little rascal.”

“I don’t remember the actual event, of course, but I know it was big for them. My parents had never had that kind of publicity in their lives,” she said. “They felt very part of the community.”

The first-baby gifts also were quite the treasure trove. A half dozen gifts were designated specifically for the father, including 5 gallons of gas, a necktie and a steam clean for his car. Only one gift was specifically for the mother, and it was something that had been nearly impossible to obtain when the war effort was consuming the national supply of nylon -- a pair of nylon hosiery. Among the gifts for the baby were blankets, milk, baby food and books.

“The little things were often hard to get in those days,” Trautman said.

Growing up, Trautman was aware she had been a first baby, and admits she may have teased her sister about how she was so great she received an award just for being born.

Many years later, Trautman’s sister, Lynne Taylor, rediscovered the framed newspaper clipping announcing her birth in a storage box while cleaning out their mother’s home. She shipped it to Trautman, who had moved from the Tri-Cities area with her husband, Chuck.

“I was in tears when I saw it,” Trautman said.

She hung it on the walls in her own house, keeping it through a series of moves to new cities.

She and Chuck now live in Arizona and often return to the Tri-Cities to visit friends and relatives, including her sister. The idea of donating the newspaper clipping to Kadlec, where Trautman’s life adventure began, was sparked by Chuck, who commented one day about how there isn’t much to read in hospital waiting areas.

“I wasn’t sure Kadlec would want it, but I knew exactly where it should go,” she said.

Trautman continues to keep track of the first baby born every year.

“Every year I look in the paper to see who the New Year’s baby is,” she said. “It is special.”