Ray Edward White Jr.

On 10 July 2017, despite his determination to overcome declining health issues this year, beloved husband, father, career Foreign Service officer, Ray E. White, Jr., passed away peacefully and with the same grace and dignity for which he was known in life. He was born 26 March 1927 to Margaret McKim and Ray E. White in Lewistown, Pennsylvania. After graduating from Lewistown High School, he and his twin brother, Robert McKay White, enlisted in the Army Air Corps and served during the latter stages of WWII. During this period he seized upon the opportunity of military postings by taking classes at Lehigh University and Clemson University. Following the War he attended Georgetown University and joined Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church where he met his future bride, Martha Jane Crabtree from Union City, Tennessee (they were both in choirs and the same Sunday school class) - a perfect match despite being total opposites. After a brief courtship, they were married on 16 September 1949.

After graduating from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, Ray pursued a PhD in Foreign Affairs and began his career with the Department of State. With the increasing demands of his job, his expanding family (Ray III, Margaret Anne, Martha Emmelyn) and mounting responsibilities as a father, the completion of the PhD dissertation proved a bridge too far - Foreign Service beckoned. In 1955 the family was posted to Helsinki, Finland. Two daughters, Rebecca McKim and Liisa McKay, were the happy outcome of this assignment. The family was then transferred to Berne, Switzerland - a son, John Malcolm was the blessing of this tour. Then came London, England, followed by a brief tour in Washington, D.C. and then onto Munich, Germany, Vienna, Austria and finally Cape Town, South Africa.

As a senior diplomat, much of Ray’s work was classified and therefore unheralded, but his children believed his career highlights were not the treaties, strategies implemented, or the accolades received, but the travel afforded them and the access to luminaries of the day, e.g., meeting Queen Elizabeth II and signing visas for the Beatles in London (hugely important to his children, especially the girls - yeah British invasion!), scoring tickets to the summer Olympics in Munich, meeting Princess Grace and her children, attending the Wiener Staatsoper in Vienna and the winter Olympics in Innsbruck, speaking with the great cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and renowned Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, meeting actors Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, and Ava Gardner, and conversing with Walter Cronkite (“the most trusted man in America") and the incomparable anti-apartheid revolutionary Madiba (Nelson Mandela) in Cape Town. These memorable encounters would impress any child - in Ray’s children’s eyes, he was a rock star.

Ray White was much loved and admired - a good man. A man of principal and integrity. He was extremely knowledgeable, warm and engaging - full of life, love and stories. Ray loved Martha and their children. He was fiercely protective of his family and so very proud - family was everything (at times, embarrassingly proud). To his family he was fearless. Their warrior. Their knight. Over-the-top and larger than life. He’d slay the dragons with his unfettered wisdom and uncompromising strength - he was their rock. The family loved being a family. They managed to stay together longer than most and spend holidays traveling extensively throughout Europe and southern Africa with friends often joining their extended entourage (including their German shepherds Julie and Baron). Road trips were de rigueur (popular / economical) - they camped, skied, sailed and explored, it was exhilarating and at the same time, intoxicating.

Ray retired from the Foreign Service after 35 years. He and Martha raised six happy, healthy children, who enjoyed privilege, basking in God’s abundant blessings. Retirement was good to them. Theirs was a devoted life partnership – they were inseparable. Ray remained tethered to the Department of State as a consultant but any “work” had to fit around their volunteering at the Kennedy Center – he as a tour guide (25) years where he routinely went off script and was often scolded (hilarious), annual snow-birding to Estero, Florida, from December to April (22) years and traipsing the globe, whenever, visiting family and reconnecting with friends. Ray White truly lived an extraordinarily rich life.

Ray (Isa) is survived by his devoted and much cherished wife of 68 years, Martha Jane Crabtree, his six children, Ray (Mary), Margaret, Martha (George), Rebecca (Thomas), Liisa, and John (Tamara); 11 grandchildren, Danielle (Tony), Kristen (Steve), Scott (Kelli), Jonathan (Erin), Stephen (Susanna), Lindsay (Ernie) David, Daniel, John (Lauren), Alexander, Victoria (Chris); four great grandchildren, Holden, Jonathan, Ava, Annabelle; and several nieces, nephews, cousins and many wonderful friends. Ray blessed us with his love, wisdom and humor. Isa (Finnish for “father” and grandchildren’s nickname), God, has you in his arms, but we will have you in our hearts forever.

Visitation will be held 6:00pm – 8:00pm on 7 August at Demaine Funeral Home, 5308 Backlick Road, Springfield, VA (www.demainefunerals.com). A funeral service will be held at the Annandale United Methodist Church, 6935 Columbia Pike, Annandale, VA 22003, on 8 August at 11:00am followed by a reception. Interment will be at National Memorial Park, 7482 Lee Hwy, Falls Church, VA 22042, at 2:00pm. In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made in his name to Doctors Without Borders.