Arthur L. White

Who was Arthur L. White?

Arthur Lacey White was noted for service to the Ellen G White Estate, as a writer, and theology professor.

One of seven grandchildren of James White and Ellen G. White, Arthur White was born to William C. White and Ethel May White on October 7, 1907. He grew up in Pratt Valley, just below the St. Helena Sanitarium in northern California. He earned a certificate in business administration in 1928 from Pacific Union College and that same year married a classmate, Frieda Belle Swingle. They moved to Madison College in Tennessee, but only for about a year.

The following year Arthur was called to the office of the Ellen G. White Estate at Elmshaven to serve as accountant and general assistant to his 74-year-old father W. C. White, one of five church leaders appointed by Ellen White in her will to administer her estate. During the next nine years Arthur was given increasing responsibilities, and in 1933 he was appointed assistant secretary of the board. Shortly after the death of W. C. White in late 1937, Arthur was elected as a life member of the board and secretary of the estate, a position he held for 41 years.

Shortly after his promotion, Arthur White supervised the transfer of the office of the E. G. White Estate from Elmshaven near Angwin, California to the world headquarters of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Washington, D.C. His principal contributions to work of the Estate included working with the world field in the development of the available Spirit of Prophecy literature and assembling E. G. White materials for publication in compilations such as Evangelism, The Adventist Home, and Selected Messages, and the creation of the three-volume Comprehensive Index to the Writings of Ellen G. White.