Quotes from the Collection
"Do all the good you can, in all the ways
you can, in all the places you can, for all the people you can, while
you can."
Favorite
motto of Clara English White, adoptive mother of Eartha White.
"Three months before I was born, my Grandfather
and his aged cousin came to visit my mother who was washing clothes
rubbing away on a wash board. Mother asked what brings you two old
cronies here so early. Cousin Henry spoke up and said I have come to
name your baby. I am naming her after the earth that she might be a
storehouse for the people. Grandfather objected that he wanted her
called Mary Magdalene after the woman in the Bible who did so much
good."
Eartha White describing the origin of her name. (From her manuscript,
"Some of My Childhood Experiences," Eartha White Collection.)
"At least once
a month, she'd come to my office at City Hall. She was irrepressible
and undeniable. She would not be denied. She only came up to my waist,
but she'd point that little finger at me and she'd tell me, `God has
chosen you and you must do this, that and the other thing.' I called
her my black angel and she was an angel in every true sense of the
word. She lived for other people. Every nickel she could get went
to help others."
Former
Jacksonville Mayor Hans Tanzler (as told to Jessie-Lynne Kerr, Florida
Times-Union, February 8, 1982).
"Sometimes I
hate to see her coming. I know she's going to try to touch me for a
lot more than I want to give - and I know she's going to get it!"
Anonymous Jacksonville politician (as told to Harold Gibson, "My
Most Unforgettable Character." Reader's Digest, 105 (December
1974).
" I want it
to serve humanity. The money is to God, not to me. What would I do
with it? Sit around the Plaza Hotel? I'm too busy."
Eartha
White, responding to the question of how she would spend her Lane Bryant
Award money (as told to Angela Taylor, New York
Times, December 4,
1970).
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Eartha White age 30
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