Melvin Ernest Trotter (May 16, 1870–September 11, 1940) was the founder of the Grand Rapids, Michigan City Rescue Mission, which he led for more than forty years, becoming a leader in American fundamentalism during the first four decades of the twentieth century.
Four years later in Pearl City, Iowa, Trotter married Lottie Fisher, who was horrified to discover that her husband was an alcoholic.
"[1] Trotter lost his job in Pearl City, and he and his wife moved to a more rural area in an attempt to help him stay sober.
[2] Trotter began leaving home for weeks at a time, and when he returned after one period of drunkenness, he discovered his two-year-old dead.
[3] Drunk, broke, and shoeless in the snow, Trotter was nudged inside the Pacific Garden Mission, where he was converted after hearing the testimony of its director, Harry Monroe.
[7] Within a few years, Trotter had the largest rescue mission in the United States, and in 1906, the organization purchased the local burlesque house in order to provide more space for its varied ministries.
By 1913, the mission held twenty-three meetings a week, and the building was in constant use twenty-four hours a day providing food, clothing, and lodging.
(The YMCA was required to amuse as well as minister to the soldiers, so Trotter eventually traveled with a quartet to fulfill the "entertainment" clause rather than be sandwiched between prize fights and movies.)
Hammontree estimated that at the close of the war, sixteen thousand soldiers “had come out for the Lord.”[11] During this second decade of the twentieth century, Trotter was stricken with cancer and his wife left him.
[15] In 1939, Trotter suffered a severe heart attack in Kannapolis, North Carolina, and died at his summer cottage near Holland, Michigan in 1940.