Emma Lee Smith White

Emma Lee Smith White (October 23, 1884 – February 17, 1983) was an American teacher, insurance agent, newspaper reporter and politician who served in the Virginia House of Delegates for two terms, from 1930 until 1934, representingGloucester and Mathews Counties.[1][2]

Emma Lee S. White
Member of the Virginia House of Delegates for Gloucester and Mathews Counties
In office
January 8, 1930 – January 9, 1934
Preceded byJohn Tabb DuVal
Succeeded byJohn Tabb DuVal
Personal details
Born
Emma Lee Smith

(1884-10-23)October 23, 1884
Albemarle County, Virginia, U.S.
DiedFebruary 17, 1983(1983-02-17) (aged 98)
Newport News, Virginia, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
Spouse(s)Carl Clifford White
Alma materCentral Female College
University of Virginia summer school
American Correspondence School of Law

Early and family life

Born in Albemarle County, Virginia to Benjamin F. Smith and his wife the former Willie Ann Dunn, Emma Lee Smith was educated in the local private schools, then the Central Female College. She also took courses from the summer school of the University of Virginia and the American Correspondence School of Law in Chicago, Illinois.[3]

She married Dr. Carl Clifford White in 1905.

Career

Emma Lee Smith taught in public private schools in Virginia. After marrying Dr. Carl Clifford White (1868-1846) in 1905, they moved to his family's residence in Westville (also known as Mathews Court House) in Mathews County, Virginia before 1930. She was active in the local Parent Teacher Association, Kingston Parish and the Tidewater Fox Hunters Association. Mrs. White helped found the American Legion Auxiliary Post 83 (serving as its president from 1921 until 1925) and the Cricket Hill[4] Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, as well as the Young Democrat Club of Gloucester in 1932 and the Roosevelt-Garner-Bland Clubs of Mathews in 1932 and 1936. As of the 1930 census, her mother and a servant lived with the family.[5] She was an insurance agent from 1925-1930 and again from 1934–1938.[6]

Mrs. White succeeded Democrat John Tabb Du Val in the Virginia House of Delegates, representing Gloucester and Mathews Counties part-time for two terms beginning in 1930. He succeeded her in 1934, after a disastrous hurricane and 100 year flood destroyed much of the county in August 1933.[7][8]

In her later years Emma Lee White was a newspaper reporter. The Mathews Journal (founded 1904) merged with the Gloucester Gazette in 1937 and maintained an office in Westville until 1954.[9]

Legacy

Emma Lee White survived her husband by several decades. She died, aged 98 after suffering from heart disease and diabetes in her old age, at Patrick Henry Hospital in Newport News, Virginia on February 17, 1983. She was buried at Kingston Parish's Trinity Cemetery in Mathews County.[10] After she stepped down from the Virginia General Assembly in 1934, no woman again sat in the state legislature for 21 years.[11]

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References
  1. Cynthia Miller Leonard, The Virginia General Assembly 1619-1978 (Richmond, Virginia State Library, 1978) p. 643, 648
  2. "Gazette-Journal - Editorial: Who cares?". www.gazettejournal.net. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
  3. E. Griffith Dodson, The General Assembly of Virginia 1919-1939 (Richmond, 1939) p. 334, available at https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006260269
  4. "Battle of Cricket Hill N-85 - Marker History". 1 July 1776. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
  5. 1930 U.S. Federal Census for family No. 178, Westville District No. 6, Mathews County,Virginia
  6. legislative bio
  7. Martha W. McCarney, Mathews County Virginia: Lost Landscapes, Untold Stories Mathews County Historical Society 2015) p. 495 cites a 1992 oral history of John Warren Cooke that the counties alternated delegates every 2 terms until post-World War II redistricting
  8. Martha W. McCartney, With Reverence for the Past: Gloucester's 350th Celebration 1651-2001 p. 237 indicates White also unsuccessfully ran for the seat in 1925, 1933, 1935 and 1937m but does not mention DuVal's service, skipping from Zachary T. Gray in 1922 to James Bland Martin in 1938 to 1940
  9. NRIS Mathews Historic District p. 8, available at dhr.virginia.gov/registers/Counties/Mathews/057-5415_Mathews_Downtown_HD_2016_PIF.pdf
  10. death certificate on ancestry.com
  11. Cynthia A. Kierner and Sandra Goia Treadway, Virginia Women: Their Lives and Times, Vol. 2 (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press 2016) p. 336



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