Isabelle Romero White, 95, of Tifton passed away Thursday, April 15, 2021 at Legacy Village in Tifton. Her funeral service will be held at 2:00 p.m. Sunday, April 18, 2021, in the Memorial Chapel of Tifton’s First Baptist Church with the Rev. Ron Lawhon officiating. Mrs. White’s grandson, Brad Cameron will give a eulogy. Mrs. White will be laid to rest at Oak Ridge Cemetery. The family will receive friends on Sunday, April 18, 2021, in the Memorial Chapel of Tifton’s First Baptist Church from 1:30 p.m. until the hour of the service.
Bradley Cameron Sr., Bradley Cameron Jr., Brother Fleming, Butch Coarsey, Ricky Baker, Bob Lee and Brad Sullivan will serve as pallbearers. Honorary pallbearers will be members of the Camellia Garden Club.
Isabelle was born in a coastal city of North Africa (Algeria) on August 26, 1925, about two decades before America first entered into World War II. She remembers well, as an older teenage girl, the arrival of the U.S. troops into her hometown when America made its initial entry into World War II. Her hometown highly celebrated this arrival, as it gave them protection from the German troops, then in North Africa. Because Isabelle was proficient in four languages, she was quickly employed by the newly created U.S. Army Base in her hometown. Also, because she was very bright, lived locally and had a highly likable, outgoing personality and four language skills, she was employed in the U.S. Army Base’s “Provost Marshall’s Office” (highest office on a military base). From this employment, she met many military people of high and moderate ranks and was constantly asked out on dates (her being a very outgoing and beautiful older teenager). The base troops named her “their Isabella” (Isabelle is of Spanish, French and Italian descent and her accent has always been absolutely irresistible, even presently). In her employment with the U.S. Military base in Algeria, she once met Frank Sinatra at a base USO show and said that she found him to be “too short but a great voice”, while she said that the base American soldiers were all so handsome. She eventually fell in love with an Army sergeant from Tifton, a place she never knew even existed. Her mother told her to not stay in Algeria but rather to experience the fullness of her life in America and to marry the Army sergeant, Donald White. They married during the war and, as soon as World War II was over, Donald brought Isabelle to America (New York by ship in 1946) and then took her by train to Tifton, where she fell in love with Tifton people and they with her (their “Isabella”), where they quickly built a home on West 10th Street, which is still the family’s home today. Donald and Isabelle raised their two daughters in Tifton and Donald enjoyed a long career in the development of new golf courses in North and South America. Through this career, Donald and Isabelle became close friends with most of the professional golfers of the 1950s through the 1970s and traveled to so many highly desirable places, meeting so many famous people who became their lifelong friends.
Isabelle was preceded in death by her husband, Donald White and her parents, Michele Romero and Lenor Martinez Romero.
Mrs. White is survived by two daughters and one son-in-law, Michele and Bradley Cameron Sr. of Atlanta and Frances W. Burnett of Tifton, and one grandson, Bradley “Brad’ Cameron, Jr.
Isabelle’s family would like to express their sincere appreciation to the staff of Legacy Village in Tifton for their wonderful, loving care of Mrs. White.