Ms. Julie Watkins White and Ms. Sarah White Bournakel

Ruth Malone was born in Kingston, Massachusetts, in 1898, and went on to earn her degree in Liberal Arts from Boston University College in 1920. After graduation, she started her career teaching English in the Braintree school system. She married Edwin White, co-founder of White Bros. Milk Company in North Quincy, Massachusetts, and they established their home in Quincy, MA. Starting with one family cow and launching the business during their teenage years, Edwin and his brother Allan built White Bros. Milk Company such that it employed over 500 people, operated six creameries in Vermont, and distributed dairy products to homes and markets on 250 delivery vehicles. Although Ruth and Edwin did not have children of their own, they both had life experiences that sculpted their belief in the importance of equal access to higher education. Edwin passed in 1951, and in the early 1980s, Ruth White sold her home on Forbes Hill in Quincy, and moved to the Milton Hill House in Milton. During Ruth’s later years, she quietly provided scholarships to deserving students with demonstrated need which enabled them to attend various nursing schools. Upon her death in 1994, and after donating to many charities, she willed that the bulk of her estate be held in trust to provide scholarships to meritorious high school graduates with financial need from the towns of Braintree, Milton, Melrose, and Quincy. The first group of scholarship recipients graduated in 2000, having received financial support from the Edwin S. and Ruth M. White Fund for each of their four years of college.

Julie Watkins White and Sarah White Bournakel serve as Fund Trustees of their great aunt’s scholarship fund. Alongside their father, Robert Gannon White Sr., they were inspired by their aunt’s generosity and support of students requiring additional financial support to complete their undergraduate education. Given added financial constraints on families due to COVID-19, they decided to increase support outside the existing scholarship program and support additional students at UMass Amherst during this unprecedented and financially challenging time. Their goal is to ensure financial constraints do not prohibit students from certain Boston Area towns from completing their undergraduate studies at UMass. It is the trustee’s hope that they can assist in minimizing student debt loans and post graduate financial burden as students complete their education and begin their careers.