Louise White of Malvern has driven to work at White Furniture Co. in Benton for 32 years, but Tuesday will be her last day — and her 90th birthday.
She’s retiring for the second time in her life.
White said she stopped by the furniture store all those years ago, and her niece, co-owner Debbie White, asked if she could help out for a few days.
“I said, ‘OK,’ and I’ve been here ever since,” Louise White said, laughing.
A birthday party for White is planned from 1:30-3:30 p.m. today in the Family Life Center at First Baptist Church of Malvern, 531 S. Main St.
The church has been like a second home for White. She’s been a member there since about 1939, she said. It’s the church where she was baptized, and she was married there in 1955. She served as a children’s Sunday School teacher and a choir director for many years and also directed countless weddings.
“I’ll bet she’s gone to every funeral First Baptist Church has ever had,” Debbie White said, laughing. Debbie said she’d be rich if she had a dime for every casserole or cake her aunt has baked for families.
Esther Whitlow, a longtime member of First Baptist Church, teaches the Sunday School class of which Louise White is a member.
Whitlow said White attends faithfully and takes roll at Sunday School, as well as leads the singing on Sunday and Wednesday nights.
Once when White didn’t show up for class — and she’s always early, Whitlow said — members were worried, so one person went to look for White. As it turned out, White had her grandson with her and was running late, but that goes to show, Whitlow said, White’s reputation for being dependable.
She said though White is small — and almost 90 — “she gets around like a streak of lightning,” Whitlow said. “She picks up two or three little ladies and brings them to church on Sunday and Wednesday nights, so it’s like she takes care of everybody else.
“We’ve been friends a long time.”
Church secretary Louise Scott said people often confuse her with Louise White, because the elder woman introduces herself as Louise Scott White.
“She’s very active,” Scott said. “We love her to death.”
“Everyone knows her as Aunt Lou,” Debbie White said. “She’s just this little remarkable lady. She thinks she’s not remarkable, but she has done a little bit of everything.”
Louise White grew up in Malvern, the daughter of Tom and Sarah “Bea” Scott. Her father was a railroad worker, and her mother was a homemaker and later worked in the nursery at the Malvern hospital. Louise has one younger sister, Pauline Toomey, who lives in an assisted-living facility in Tennessee.
“I wasn’t fortunate enough to go to college,” White said, but she worked at several places in Malvern before she graduated from high school, including at a lawyer’s office and the former J.E. Chamberlain’s Rexall Drug store.
After high school graduation, she worked as a secretary at the Acme Brick Co. Perla Plant for 21 years, then the International Paper Flakeboard Plant in Gifford until it closed, and at Plywood and Lumber Wholesale in Little Rock until it closed. Her next position was at Arkadelphia Land and Timber near DeGray Lake, and she retired early — at 57, said her son, Scott White of Benton.
White laughed about that; she doesn’t remember how old she was then.
Shortly afterward, in 1986, is when she was on her way to visit her beloved husband, Norris, in the hospital and stopped in to see her niece at White Furniture Co.
A disabled World War II veteran, her husband served as Hot Spring County circuit clerk and Hot Spring County treasurer.
It was not love at first sight for her when they met.
“I had seen him in town; I guess in his car,” White said. When White visited her cousin in Glen Rose, they went to church, and Norris was there with a friend, and they came to her cousin’s house afterward.
“He wanted to know when he could see me; I put him off a little bit,” she said.
She said her husband was just 19 when he was wounded by a bullet or shrapnel, she said.
“They were taking this German town, … and he said they heard this noise. He lost his trigger finger and his right leg, the complete right leg. He was on crutches all those years,” she said.
Debbie White said that reminded her of another aspect of her aunt’s personality.
“She’s the type of person — she always had handicapped plates, but she would drop him off at the door and go park somewhere else. She’d say, ‘I’m not handicapped.’ Her values are unreal.”
Louise White’s health is good, but in 2013, she fell and cracked her pelvis and was in a nursing home for about four weeks for therapy.
“I love people; I love to smile at people,” she said. “When I would go down the hall in a wheelchair or walker, people would be looking so sad. I always smiled, and I would wave and kind of speak to them. Sooner or later, most of them would respond in some way.”
White has been a member of the Disabled American Veterans Auxiliary as long as she can remember and is still active with the Hot Spring County Historical Society.
“I was secretary for several years,” she said. “I love to go to the meetings and hear all about everything.”
White is also a longtime member of the American Legion Auxiliary. She served as treasurer and hosted a tea for many years for the local girls who attended Girls State.
“The Girls State delegates and their mothers, when we found out who they were, I’d plan a day for them to come to my house, and we’d have punch and cookies and so forth, to kind of honor them,” White said.
Malvern has changed through the years, of course.
“On Saturday nights, the streets used to be lined up with cars; you know how we used to park angling. We’d sit there and watch cars go by or watch the street. A lot of people would go to town on Saturday night, maybe go to the movie. It’s a shame so many stores have been there and closed.”
Debbie White and her brother, Bill, run White Furniture Co., which was started by their parents — Clemmie and Estelle White. Clemmie’s younger brother, Norris, was Louise’s husband.
Louise said she’s enjoyed working at the furniture store all these years. “I’m in the office, so I don’t sell — [I enjoy] just being with people and keeping up my typewriter skills. I’m computer illiterate; I’m one of the few,” she said.
The decision to retire again was a gradual one.
“We’ve had such a rough winter, and occasionally, Debbie would call me and say, ‘Stay home today; it’s too bad.’ I thought, ‘Maybe it’s time,’” Louise said.
She said the fact that it’s her 90th birthday is coincidental to her retirement.
“What I want to do, if it’s the Lord’s will, after my party, I want to come to work May 1, my birthday, then I’ll go home. How does that sound?”
Her only plan after she retires is “probably sleep till noon for a day or two.”
“That’s just it — I just don’t have any hobbies. I’ve just always worked, and if I’m needed, I’ll do something for somebody,” Louise said.
So don’t expect her to be home for long.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.