Obituaries

Frederick Grinnell WhiteArmy Colonel

Frederick Grinnell White, 93, a retired Army colonel and World War II veteran who briefly served in China during that country's civil war, died Jan. 8 of cancer at his home in Fairfax City.

Born in Spokane, Wash., Col. White played on an undefeated Gonzaga Preparatory School football team that outscored its 1931-32 opponents 405-0, winning mention in "Ripley's Believe It or Not." After graduating in 1932, shortly after his well-to-do family was devastated by the Depression, he held a number of jobs to help out, including mining gold in Alaska. Joining the Army as an infantry private, he won a competitive appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., in 1936 and graduated in 1940.

During World War II, he served in Panama, as well as in India, Burma, China and Manchuria.

Shortly after World War II, with civil conflict brewing across China between the Communists under Mao Zedong and the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek, Col. White volunteered to serve on one of Gen. George C. Marshall's cease-fire teams. Marshall had been dispatched to China by President Harry S. Truman to broker a coalition government.

Before Marshall's efforts ended in failure in 1947, Col. White served in Shantung province, one of the most dangerous areas in China. After rescuing a Jesuit priest, he was held hostage for about two weeks by the Communists. He wrote about his China adventure in a book, "We Tried to Stop a War" (1949).

Col. White served in Austria and Vietnam in the 1950s and as a brigade commander in Mainz, Germany, in the 1960s. After his retirement in 1967, he worked for 10 years as a researcher and systems analyst for the Department of the Army.

In 1977 he joined Long & Foster Realtors, where he worked as an agent until his retirement in 1994. He was honored as one of the company's top 20 producers.

Col. White was a member of the Army Navy Country Club, where he served as vice president and club historian. He also was vice president and historian for his West Point Class of 1940. He was a member of St. Leo the Great Roman Catholic Church in Fairfax County.

His wife, Eleanor Burke White, died in 2002.

Survivors include five children, James L. White of Belair, Fla., Mary G. Pappalardo of Stamford, Conn., Frederick G. White Jr. of Bradington, Fla., Thomas B. White of Scottsdale, Ariz., and Joseph C. White of Annandale; nine grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

-- Joe Holley