The boxes arrived addressed to the Georgetown Historical Society.  Cathy Groves had described what she was sending, thus the contents were not a surprise. What did take me by surprise were my feelings - a mixture of discovery and joy and a sense of loss - like finding a cherished keepsake from long ago in the bottom of a dresser drawer. 

Packaged neatly together were dozens of photographs, letters, and many other documents including the wedding invitation for Ruth Royer and Clarence Hudson White, Jr.  Cathy, Ruth’s niece, felt strongly that the items she had inherited from Ruth should “go back to Maine”. Several years earlier Cathy generously had donated her Uncle Clarence’s 1929-1937 family films.  Georgetown is the subject of much of the films’ content, we shared with you in February 2005.

When Jim and I first met Ruth in 1985, she had been living alone at the “Popple Beach” house since her husband’s death in 1978.   It was wonderful to have a year-round neighbor, especially one who knew Georgetown so well.  We were charmed and impressed by this self-sufficient woman with an infectious laugh, who had no qualms about living alone on a small dirt road at the far end of an island. It was only after Clarence’s death that she, at age 71, learned to drive! 

Over the too few years until Ruth’s passing in 1991, we did all the things rural neighbors typically do for one another. Shoveling snow from a walkway was repaid with a cup of coffee and something sweet to eat.  My wrist surgery brought a gift of Ruth’s homemade soup.  And what were intended to be brief stops to deliver the day’s mail sometimes turned into lengthy visits to hear stories of Georgetown back when, as well as life in New York City, or sometimes about the White School of Photography, or their lives in Ohio, where Clarence was professor of photography at Ohio University and Ruth was a high school French teacher. Both of them loved teaching and were loved by those whom they taught.

Long-time TIDE readers know how the Whites became acquainted with Georgetown.  Clarence’s parents were Clarence H. White, Sr. and Jane (Felix) White. They were introduced to the island by fellow pictorialist F. Holland Day in 1908. The lure of a life on a ruggedly beautiful island was strong, especially given New York summers. In 1910 the Whites purchased a circa 1815 farmhouse (formerly owned by the Hinkley and Davis families) from businessman Walter Reid and promptly moved it from what is now Seguinland Road to a location closer to the water. (See TIDE Vol.12, No. 3 for Clarence, Jr.’s 1935 story about moving the house to its location nearer Sheepscot Bay.)

Ruth and Clarence met through a mutual acquaintance, Barnard alumna Truda Smith, whose family lived across the street from the White School of Photography in New York City.  According to Cathy Groves, “Ruth was an honors graduate of Barnard’s class of ’28 and had been ensconced in a career as a high school French teacher” when she met young Clarence. She first visited Georgetown with him in 1931, and in 1934 they were married at the Riverside Church in Manhattan.

Her husband had become the Director of the Clarence H. White School of Photography after his father died in 1925 at age 54 while on a field trip in Mexico with his White School students.  Ruth became registrar and secretary for the School, which prospered and grew, requiring a move to a larger facility.  Then came the war years, which drained male students and teachers, as well as photographic supplies.  It closed in 1942 with Jane White’s death not long afterwards. Clarence Jr. and Ruth inherited the house.  Their correspondence for the years 1946 to 1949 details their efforts to operate a school of photography in Bath. Says niece Cathy, “Ruth had to virtually run the school while Clarence was called to do the still photos of atomic bomb tests on the USS McKinley in the Pacific in 1948.”  But the fledgling school did not take wing, and in 1949 Ruth and Clarence moved to Ohio, his father’s home state, where Clarence served for many years as head of the photography department   The Whites returned to their beloved Georgetown as often as possible, until retirement permitted them to live here year-round.  Their lives had been filled with marvelous adventures but it was Popple Beach that called them home. Their 1971 Christmas card tells us why:

But retirement was a relative term as both became active in Georgetown activities.  Ruth volunteered for the school and fire departments, and Clarence served as Selectman.  They were but two of the many ordinary but extraordinary people who have called Georgetown home. Thank goodness Clarence and Ruth treasured these items enough to save them, and their niece honored them and us by making them a gift to the Georgetown Historical Society. 

Ruth and Clarence White Jr. at Popple Beach 1977

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