University of Delaware
Office of Public Relations
UpDate - Vol. 16, No. 34, June 12

             Dorothy White: Proud member of Class of 1997
     
     Dorothy Mary Laskowski White of Newark graduated from
high school on D-Day, on June 6, 1944. Two years ago, at the
age of 68, she went back to Newark High, sat in on driver's
ed classes and learned how to drive. Now, the 70-year-old
artist has earned a bachelor of fine arts degree, going to
class with older "children"-fellow students-most of whom,
she said, she wanted to adopt.
     "They were so dear. They were so respectful. They'd
open doors for me. They were just great," she said of her
fellow UD students. "Of course, some of them painted really
weird things-things I thought they might better have kept to
themselves but they had to express their impressions, I
guess."
     White's own work is in oil and watercolor. Acrylics,
she said, are nothing but housepaint. She said she also
enjoys photography, but she doesn't call herself a
photographer since she doesn't do her own darkroom work.
     Her final senior exhibition was held, appropriately, at
the Newark Senior Center.
     "That was a natural location, wasn't it?," she said
with a laugh. "We all enjoyed it."
     For most of her adult years, White's life was defined
by her late husband's military career. Jack White, a four-
time Purple Heart awardee who took part in the invasion of
Omaha Beach, first served in the Army and later in the Air
Force. The couple raised their three children wherever he
was stationed-in England, Morocco and various locations in
the U.S.
     "My family was all from this area, and Jack fell in
love with them," White said. "When we were looking for a
place to retire, Newark seemed like the right place."
     When Jack fell ill two years ago and could only be
released from the hospital if there was someone in the house
with a drivers' license, his wife decided it was time to get
one. Only after his death and burial at Arlington
Cemetery-with full honors-did she determine to complete her
education.
     "I had started to school once before in the College of
Agriculture Sciences, studying landscape architecture, but
never finished," she said.
     "Claudia Fischer, [assistant dean in the College of
Arts and Science], was a miracle worker, figuring out what
credits I needed and what ones I already had."
     The youngest in a family of seven, White is the first
of that generation to receive a college diploma.
     "We were raised during the Depression," she said. "We
couldn't afford shoes, let alone a college education."
     White was thrilled to attend the Commencement ceremony,
but she added that she was particularly pleased at a party
her three children, six grandchildren and one great-
granddaughter were planning in her honor later that day.
     "The grandchildren are so excited to see grandma
graduate," she said. "One is all set to take the pictures.
I'm very pleased. I almost can't believe it."
                                                -Beth Thomas