Foster Parent to Hundreds Dies
'Daddy White' remembered as one who led by example.
By Laura Heinauer
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Levi "Daddy" White loved children — so much so that he and his wife, Ann, were foster parents to more than 200 of them over more than 20 years.

But there was one in particular who seemed to touch him a little deeper than the rest.

Ann White says she and her husband chose to take in abused and neglected children because of her own difficult childhood, which included the loss of her mother. Although the Whites did not have a lot of money, their table was always full of food, and their church donated Christmas gifts for the children.

Levi 'Daddy' White and his wife, Ann, cared for six to nine children at a time. White died July 2 at 91.

"He just took to Bradley, and Bradley took to him," Ann White, 76, said Monday as she leafed through pictures and mementos kept from a life taking care of foster children — almost all of whom had been neglected or abused. She looked for a long time at the picture of a smiling boy, Bradley, who came to her with casts on both legs.

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