Thomas Henry White, 1842–1910

Thomas Henry White, son of Nicholas White (or Whyte) and Rosanna Farrell, was born on 11 January 1842 with his baptism at St. Francis Xavier Church, all in St. Louis. He married first on 2 October 1889 in Lincoln County, Missouri, to Medora Catherine “Katie” Mudd, daughter of Hilary Pius Mudd and Clarissa Mudd. Katie was born on 19 February 1853 and died on 7 December 1892, with burial at St. Alphonsus Cemetery at Millwood, Lincoln County, Missouri. Thomas Henry White married, second, on 23 May 1893 at St. Alphonsus Church at Millwood, to Mary Clare “Mollie” Mudd, daughter of Hilary Pius Mudd and Clarissa Mudd, and sister of Katie Mudd.

Tom and Mollie had two children: Thomas Joseph White and Catherine Elizabeth White. Tom followed his father’s craft, that of slate roofer. In 1893, Tom and Mollie lived at 1925 Park Avenue in St. Louis. At the time of the 1900 federal census, they were living at St. Ferdinand in St. Louis County. They visited frequently with Mollie’s family at Millwood and St. Alphonsus Church, where their children were baptized. A member of St. Alphonsus Church said that he had a faint recollection of a Mr. White roofing the church. (An item in the 14 March 1907 edition of the Silex Index of Lincoln County, mentions that the lumber for the addition to St. Alphonsus Church at Millwood had arrived.)

In 1901, Tom and Mollie were back in St. Louis living at 4232 Scanlan; living at 4118 Connecticut in 1904; and residing at 2225 Sidney in 1909. Tom died on 25 January 1910 with the funeral held at the residence of his sister, Mary L. White Harrigan, at 3638 West Pine Blvd. His obituary in the Silex Index states that he fell from a building Monday evening and died from his injuries early the next morning. His burial occurred at St. Alphonsus Cemetery at Millwood in Lincoln County, Missouri.

After Tom’s death, Mollie and her children moved back to Millwood and lived in Betty Mudd’s house, across the road from the rectory where Mollie cooked and kept house for the pastor. Molly died on 22 February 1934, at the home of her son, Thomas Joseph White, at Silex in Lincoln County, with burial at St. Alphonsus Cemetery at Millwood.

Their twenty-four year old daughter, Catherine Elizabeth White, died on 2 January 1919 at Millwood, during the flu epidemic. In the 1930s, her husband, John Rupert Little, and their children, and her brother, Thomas Joseph White, moved to Mississippi County in the southeast corner of Missouri.

Written by Betty Rolwing Darnell

September 2016

© 2016 St. Louis Genealogical Society

Mary “Mollie” Mudd White

Photo in the collection of Betty Rolwing Darnell
Used with permission