Henry and Marsha (Ming) White will celebrate one of life and love’s greatest milestones this year —50 years of marriage. Their love story is one of focusing on what they have in common rather than what makes them different. As they point out, every marriage has its ups and downs but by handling life as a team, they are as happy today as they were when they said “I do” decades ago. 

Henry and Marsha will celebrate 50 years of marriage on Aug.18, 2022. They met in 1971 when they both began teaching at East Limestone. 

“I heard they were having a Ming, that’s her maiden name, and I heard she had blond hair and blue eyes and I thought, ‘Gosh, I got to meet her,’” Henry said. 

“He thought I was Chinese, with the last name Ming. He thought if I was blond headed and blue eyed that that doesn’t match with a Chinese person,” Marsha said. Henry learned that they just lived down the road from each other and they started talking. 

“I’d go pick her up in my Mustang and we just started dating,” he said. 

“What is this red-headed man doing at my door,” Marsha said when asked what she first thought when she met Henry. “He was nice, personable and I liked his height. I remember talking with my college roommate and how we didn’t want to marry somebody that was a lot taller than us. We wanted to marry someone we could look at them eye-to-eye.” Henry is 5’4” and Marsha is 5’1” — so she got what she wanted. 

“Henry grew up totally different from me. I grew up in a family where when my dad got out of World War II, he started working at an Air Force base. He was an airplane mechanic and he was really good at his job. My parents met on an Air Force Base. She was a secretary. When the missile program started in the late 1950s with Werner Von Braun in Huntsville, dad had the opportunity to move to Huntsville and work on the missile program,” Marsha said. 

“I grew up in a middle class home. I wasn’t from a farming family, but Henry grew up in a sharecroppers family. By the end, his parents had 13 children. He grew up in a family that was very poor. He was different but my parents had respect for him. They knew that his background was different but they also knew that growing up in that, he knew the importance of getting an education. He had graduated from UNA and was teaching. I always kidded my mom that she loved him more than she loved me,” she said. 

Although Marsha graduated from Athens High School and Henry graduated from Tanner High School, the two had never met until they became teachers in 1971 at East Limestone. Henry attended UNA and Marsha, after two years at Belmont University in Nashville, transferred to Auburn University where she received her teaching degree. 

As the next school year started, Henry and Marsha were married. They were married at First Baptist Church in Athens but, as a couple, attended Tanner First Baptist Church. 

“I remember when Tanner Baptist was just a little charter church. Its grown. It started in a little old house in the Swan Creek Trailer Park,” Marsha said. 

Eventually the church was able to save enough to purchase the property where the church is today. The White’s still attend Tanner Baptist Church. 

Henry transferred to Tanner High School in the fall of 1972 and Marsha taught at East Limestone for the next seven years. Besides being busy teaching and coaching, Henry was on three different softball teams and he also umpired. 

“We spent all of our time, when we first got married, at the ball field. We were at the ball field almost every day except Wednesday and Sundays. On those days, we were at church,” Marsha said. 

 

After seven years at East Limestone, Marsha asked for a transfer when there was an opening at Tanner.

“It seemed better for us to have the same school with the same set of activities,” she said. 

By then, Henry was coaching football, basketball and baseball teams. In those times, teachers were also expected to work the concession stands or the ticket gate so working at the same school helped with scheduling. 

In 1984, Henry made the switch from teaching and coaching and went into administration as an assistant principal for two years. In 1986, he became principal at Reid Elementary School where he stayed for three years before running for Limestone County Superintendent. He was elected and spent the next four years as the superintendent. In 1993, he returned to Reid Elementary as principal until he retired in 2007. 

“I got to do a lot of things and see a lot of people, so it was an adventure,” he said. 

Henry was also elected to the Athens City Council in 2000. He served on the council until 2006. In 2006, he set his sights on state office. He ran for state representative and won. He served Limestone County in Montgomery for four years. 

“I felt like when you teach, you serve. I felt like I could maybe offer more,” Henry said. “I enjoyed helping people.”

Watching her husband run for public office was hard for Marsha. 

“You want them to win. You think they are the best person for the job. I thought he was and thought he would always do a good job. You always want them to win so it hurts when they lose. It hurts you for them because you know how much they wanted to win and have that position,” she said. 

Henry believes that the key to their relationship is communication and solving problems together. 

“I think what helps too is to put the Lord first. I think thats the key to everything. You put the Lord first and put each other second. I think a lot of times, people are selfish. They want everything for themselves. They want to feel good but they don’t think about that other person,” Marsha said. “In a marriage, you’ve got to learn to put that other person first.”

Now that they are both retired, Henry and Marsha are enjoying attending their grandchildren’s sporting events, attending Tanner games and traveling. For their anniversary, they have a vacation planned to England, Ireland and Scotland. 

They also stay busy as volunteers with several nonprofit groups in Limestone County, including the Lion’s Club, Retired Senior Volunteer Program, Boys and Girls Club, North Alabama Mental Health Board and Birdie Thornton Center. Henry is also a member of the Master Gardeners and they maintain a large garden at the White’s home. The vegetables yielded from the garden are donated to the Limestone County Churches Involved. 

Henry and Marsha have two children, Cory and Lindsey. Cory and his wife, Christy, have two children, Aubrey and Riley. Lindsey and her husband, Kent, have four children: Kensey, Karmen, Kendall and Kent.