Willie T. White papers

Willie Theresa White (nicknamed “Cubbie”) was born on May 20, 1898, to a Rockford, Coosa County, Alabama, physician, Wilson White, and his wife, Kate White. She had two siblings, a sister named Myrtie and a brother named Drew. Wilson White died in 1908, and thereafter Kate White supported Willie and her siblings by running a boarding house. Willie lived in Rockford until the late 1910s, at which time she moved to Birmingham, Alabama.

During and directly after World War I, Willie White corresponded with a number of soldiers, some of whom she had never met. During the 1910s and 1920s she also corresponded with a number of men who were romantically interested in her. The most prolific of these men, in terms of volume of correspondence with Miss White, was Leonard P. Hughen, who wrote to her frequently between 1914 and 1920. Mr. Hughen made more than one reference in his letters to the possibility of a marriage between himself and Miss White, but she was to remain unwed for the duration of her life. As of 1920, Willie was employed as a stenographer at the Young Women’s Christian Association in Birmingham. By the late 1920s, Miss White had moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where she would reside for the majority of her life. During the Great Depression, Willie and her mother, Kate White, were operators of the Blue Lantern Tea Room in Tuscaloosa. After World War II, Willie worked as an occupational therapist at the Veteran’s Administration Hospital in Tuscaloosa. Late in her life, Willie was a resident of Hatley Health Care in Clanton, Alabama. Willie White passed away on July 6, 1990, at the age of 92.

Sources:

1900 United States Census

1910 United States Census

1920 United States Census

1930 United States Census