WILLIAM ARTHUR WHITE
William Arthur (Bill) White, a fifty-year executive in New England’s packaging industry and a nationally and sectionally ranked tennis player, died at age 92 on Saturday, March 12, 2011 at Beaumont at Natick after a long illness. He previously resided in Braintree, Dennis, and Wellesley. Born on September 9, 1918 in New York, NY to the late William A. White Sr. and Katherine (Schmidt) White, he was raised in Palm Beach, FL and Danbury, CT, along with his younger sister Rosemary.
A 1936 graduate of Danbury High School, Bill attended Cornell University, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering in 1941. At Cornell he was an active member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity (as was his grandson Benjamin Krysiak sixty years later). Upon graduation, he joined the Bethlehem Steel Yard in Quincy, where he designed newly commissioned U. S. Navy ships throughout World War II. On March 20, 1943, in Boston’s historic Old South Church, he married the woman who would be his wife of forty-nine years, the late Rachel (Carr) White. They settled in Braintree, raising six children there until moving to Dennis in 1988.
Following the war, Bill worked in a number of engineering and sales positions before joining Whitney Packaging and Processing of Needham as Vice President in 1957. Over the next fifty-one years, he designed and sold a wide variety of packaging and processing equipment to a wide range of New England customers, from the Gillette Company’s massive South Boston complex to small Mom-and-Pop food processors in Vermont. For many of the latter he effectively served as Chief of Operations, designing their initial plant lay-outs, serving as trouble-shooter whenever problems arose, and helping them expand their facilities as they grew. Bill designed the Whitney corporate headquarters building in Needham. Upon the death of his close friend and colleague Bill Whitney in 1995, Bill continued in the business as President of Packaging Associates, working with his son David and Bill Whitney’s son Chris. At 84, he received the Simplex Award of Excellence as Top Salesman of the Year 2002 from his long-time supplier Simplex Filler Company of Napa, CA. He was at his desk every work-day morning at 8 am until he retired in 2008 at the age of 89.
An enthusiastic athlete his entire life, Bill excelled at tennis, following in the footsteps of his father, who was the City Champion of Danbury for many years and once played singles against the all-time great Bill Tilden. (He lost.) After competing with his father in the National Father-Son Championships in 1936 at Longwood Cricket Club in Brookline, Bill played competitive parent-child doubles from 1963 to 2000 with four of his children, earning several national and New England rankings. He was the patriarch of the family that was awarded the Family of the Year Award by USTA New England for 2009. Bill was a lifetime member of the Quincy Tennis Club ever since moving to the area in 1941, and served as club President. In the mid-1950’s Bill designed, and working side by side with local carpenters, built a home in Dennis, where the family spent its summers. There the Whites were one of the early families that formed the backbone of the Mashantum Tennis Club, founded in the Dennis woods by Bill’s friend Tom Dingman. At Mashantum, Bill served as President, was a five-time Club Singles Champion, and won the Aldrich Cup for all-around excellence on three occasions. His daughter Katherine won the Club’s most prestigious Junior Award, the Dingman (previously Dennis) Cup. Bill hit his last tennis ball in 2007 at the age of 88.
In addition to his sister Rosemary Kloiber of Milton, GA, his son David S. and his wife Diane B. White of Westborough, and his daughter Katherine F. of Wilmette, IL, Bill is survived by his sons William A. III and his wife Susan P. White of Jamaica Plain, and James L. and his wife Dennise L. White of North Hampton, NH, his daughters Elizabeth Krysiak and her husband Bruce Krysiak of Newport Coast, CA, and Susan McNeice and her husband Thomas McNeice of Needham, seventeen grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, and his beloved partner Doris Heinold of Wellesley.
Bill’s life will be celebrated in a memorial service at 3:30 pm on Saturday, March 26 at the Wellesley Hills Congregational Church, 207 Washington Street, Wellesley, followed by a reception at the Wellesley College Club, 727 Washington Street, Wellesley. Friends are kindly invited. A private interment will be held at the Dennis Village Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Mashantum Tennis Club, P. O. Box 125, Dennis, MA 02638, or the Dennis Conservation Trust, P. O. Box 67, East Dennis, MA 02641 (www.dennisconservationtrust.org).