Adele White (née Murphy), 91, died on April 10, 2017 at Oak Park’s Brookdale Oak Park. She grew-up in the Bronx, New York with her parents, Jim and Adele and siblings, Evelyn and Jimmy. She attended Walton High School and Hunter College where she received a B.A. in philosophy with a minor in math. After college, she worked as a statistician at Standard Oil, where she met Bill White, of Charleston, Illinois. They married in 1955. In 1961, Bill was transferred back to Standard’s Chicago headquarters, and the family relocated to Park Forest. There they made many great and lasting friends, chiefly through the book club that welcomed Adele.
As her kids grew, Adele trained as a teacher and taught sixth grade at the local elementary school in Hickory Hills until she retired. She was a creative, demanding teacher who treated her students as people. Many would visit her long after they moved on from her class. She loved theater, literature, music, and travel, especially in France. On the road, as in life generally, she and Bill were a great team. She navigated, he drove, and they delighted in the people they met, the places they saw, and the meals they shared.
She was a devoted mother and a proud and doting grandmother to Rachel and Sam, who enjoyed her warm intelligence in Oak Park after she and Bill made a home in Brookdale, where caregivers and nursing staff, along with her husband and daughter-in-law, eased her burdens in her waning years.
Adele White is survived by her husband, Bill; her sons, Jim and Paul; her daughter-in-law, Andrea Ravin; her grandchildren, Rachel and Sam; and many friends, nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and grand-nephews who all hold her memory dear.