“The town of Lewes, noted for its long life seamen,” the Milford Chronicle reported on Dec. 31, 1926, “has sixty-eight men and women whose average age is more than 75 years.”
One of these long-living Lewes residents was Patience Walls White, who was born in 1834.
At the beginning of the 19th century, about 4,000 slaves lived in southern Delaware; and they comprised about a fourth of the Sussex County’s population.
Patience was born a slave at Cool Spring, about a half-dozen miles southwest of Lewes. Most people in Sussex County lived on farms that were connected by a muddy network of roads that meandered across the southern Delaware countryside.
In the 19th century, it was not surprising that many people spent their entire lives in southern Delaware, but in the 20th century, with the arrival of the railroad, automobiles and improved roads, Patience claimed that she had never traveled outside of Sussex County.
Patience was 27 years old at the beginning of the Civil War, which led to the 13th Amendment to the Federal Constitution freeing all the slaves in Delaware. The passage of the 14th Amendment supposedly guaranteed Patience and other former slaves their rights as citizens, but it was thwarted by segregation and the principle of “separate but equal.”
Likewise, she received no benefit from the 15th Amendment that promised the right to vote to former slaves, since it only applied to males.
In 1920, when Patience was in her 86th year, the 19th Amendment was ratified, guaranteeing Patience and all American women the right to vote.
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Patience married Henry White, and they had two children, a daughter, Mary, and a son, Fred.
As the decades flew by, Patience witnessed the introduction of electricity, telephones, automobiles, airplanes, motion pictures, radio and other modern conveniences into southern Delaware.
By the time that her husband died in 1925, Patience was well-known in the coastal region, where she was affectionately known as “Aunt Pash.”
At the time of her death, the Milford Chronicle, noted, “She worked for the Marsh family and Henry Marsh stipulated in his will that Aunt Pait should be given each year on her birthday anniversary a large birthday cake, a can of lard, a side of pork and this has been done by the Marsh heirs.”
On Tuesday, July 25, 1933, a small crowd gathered at 8:30 in the evening in the home of Patience’s son-in-law and daughter, Albert and Mary Dunning, to celebrate Patience’s 99th birthday.
She was in good health, and as Patience greeted the well-wishers, she jokingly remarked that she did not expect to be around for her 100th birthday.
According to the Delaware Coast News: “Her voice is remarkably deep and is as vibrant as that of a person of fifty. She walks around the house and yard, and up and down stairs from her bedroom on the second floor without difficulty.”
At the party, guests enjoyed ice cream, cake, punch, candy and peanuts (there was no mention of the lard and side of pork) while Patience opened her many birthday gifts.
On Sept. 12, 1938, Patience Walls White died suddenly at the Lewes home of her daughter, Mary Dunning.
In her remarkably long life of 104 years, she had witnessed southern Delaware’s entrance into the modern world. Patience was buried in St. George’s cemetery on Pilottown Road.
Principal sources
Milford Chronicle, Dec. 31, 1926; Sept. 16, 1938; July 30, 1937; May 13, 1938.
Delaware Coast News, July 28, 1933.
Smyrna Times, Aug. 5, 1937.
