Jack Farrington White was born in August 1898 in Jackson, Tennessee. He was the youngest son of Albert C. (AC) and Nancy Ellen White. He attended public schools in Jackson graduating when he was just 16. He then attended university in both Colorado Springs, CO and Jackson, TN earning a teaching certificate. He was a teacher and principal in Pinson, TN before leaving for New Orleans to join his older brother Sid in his cotton brokerage firm.

Jack enlisted in the Marine Corps in August 1918 and served time in France during WWI. Upon honorable discharge in 1919, he then attended the University of Virginia Law School and graduated in 1922. He practiced law in Jackson and continued to work in the family cotton brokerages in New York, New Orleans, and Jackson.

The 1920's Florida land boom was in full swing and rife with opportunities so Jack and his friend Tom Curtin, a Tennessean he'd befriended at the University of Virginia, decided to move to Clearwater together. They shortly passed the bar exam and then joined a local law firm. Jack met and married Mary Carr Westbrook after a brief but intense courtship in the spring of 1925. They were married for over 40 years.

After practicing law for a decade, Jack won the Democratic seat for Pinellas county in the Florida State Legislature in 1937. He served the legislative term in Tallahassee with distinction and was re-elected for a second term, Jack set his sights on running for County Judge and won that election in 1939. Judge White then began a long and distinguished career, serving both as County Judge and as an Appellate Judge on the Second District Court of Appeals in Lakeland, Florida. Known throughout the state for his depth of expertise on probate matters, Judge White was often called upon to sit in on cases by the Florida State Supreme Court Justices.

Judge White was universally respected by his peers, attorneys, friends, and even individuals who he had sentenced to terms in jail. He had a keen sense of humor, ready smile, and a genuine love and concern for others. He had a way of making each person he spoke with feel special. He will always be remembered as a kind-hearted, giving individual who put service to his country, state, and community first among his priorities.

Early Life in Jackson

Jack was the youngest son of parents who had previously married, raised families, and then lost their spouses. When AC White and Nancy Ellen Watson Godwin married probably neither expected another child but they were blessed with Jack. AC was 53 years old and Nancy Ellen was 40 when he was born. Jack grew up with six much older half siblings, 3 from his father's first marriage and 3 from his mother's. As a very young boy he was reported to have said, "half brothers, half sisters, I might was well just throw myself in front of a train. I don't have a whole anything!" However this joke belies the deep relationship he had with his siblings. Especially dear to him were his sisters Hilda and DeLana. These two women were known for their sweet natures and doted on their baby brother completely. Relatives in Jackson reported that his sisters talked glowingly of him and when he came to town to visit from Florida, it was no holds barred. He distinguished himself in school, showing early aptitude in all types of learning. He was equally apt to show his toughness, never backing down from a schoolyard fight and routinely took on older boys and won.

College and WWI

Finishing up his public school education with a classics diploma, Jack set off to see a bit of the United States. He joined his sister DeLana and her husband in Colorado Springs in 1915 and attended Colorado College for a year. The next year found him back in Jackson and by 1917 he'd earned a teaching certificate from Union University and served as a principal, bus driver, and teacher in Pinson, TN just south of Jackson.  By this time, the lure of the the party going on in New Orleans must have been too much to resist, and he joined his older brother Sid to help him run his business, Weld & White Cotton Brokerage. Jack wrote to his sister Hilda in 1918, "I can do pretty much as I please attending parties and going on camping trips." The U.S. economy was booming, the New Orleans cotton exchange thriving, and as part of a large group of socially networked family and friends, the NOLO party in the late Gilded Age must have been a doozy. But the events in Europe had set off a series of trip wires that inexorably drew the United States into the First World War. The United States declared war on Germany in April 1917.  In August 1918, Jack volunteered for the US Marine Corps and traded the party in New Orleans for bootcamp at a mosquito invested Parris Island, NC. Whether seeking to prove his frontier heritage in Tennessee or simply prove he could do it, he was determined to passed the rigorous requirements to earn the Sharp Shooter's badge. This achievement earned him $20 more dollars a month in pay and assured his tour of duty wouldn't be in a mess hall.  He arrived in France in October 1918 and the war ended on November 11. He continued to be deployed in France until his honorable discharge in August 1919. He was 21.