LEBANON, Ohio — At 89, Jennie White is sharper than most her age.
Perhaps it’s because she’s a prolific reader. Or maybe it’s because she keeps up a nightly tradition: playing Scrabble with her daughter, who happens to live in the condo next door.
Though the logophiles typically play virtually on their tablets, we sat down with them for a round with the traditional board and wooden tiles. The two take spelling seriously.
“In 1976, I had a triple, triple plus 50,” said White's daughter Terri Smith as she read from an old scorecard. “I had a total that time of 419 points.”
Smith said she became known as the grammar police at work — a title she got thanks to her "momma."
White grew up in Beetle, Kentucky, a small, rural community in Carter County in the northeastern part of the state, in the 1930s and 1940s.
As an only child, White said she gravitated toward books, often finding escape and entertainment on their pages.
“I read a lot. That was where the spelling came in. I recognized the words, and I was always interested in them. I loved word games,” White said.
White developed an affinity for words, and it didn’t take long for her peers to know it. Inside the walls of her one-room schoolhouse, she participated in a spelling bee and beat out the rest of the students.
Over time, White advanced from competition to competition, eventually winning the regional bee that encompassed Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia. That win secured White a spot in the 22nd Scripps National Spelling Bee in 1949.
Watch here to learn more about Jennie White's journey from small-town Kentucky to the 1949 Scripps National Spelling Bee:
Each of the 49 finalists was treated to an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C. White — who was registered in the bee as Jennie Adams — and her mom traveled to Huntington, West Virginia, where they visited White's aunt before boarding the train to the capital.
It was a week of many firsts for White, who had turned 13 two months prior.
“They had something for us to do every day, every night. We went sightseeing. We had a wonderful dinner. My mother and I had shad roe for the first time — we didn’t know what shad roe was — and the waiter recommended it and we had it and we loved it,” White said. “That was the first time I ever saw television. My mother and I were walking through the Willard hotel and glanced into this room, and all these gentlemen were gathered around this little box — it wasn’t very big. They were watching a baseball game.”
The bee took place inside the National Press Building that year. White said she wasn't scared. She and her mom practiced every night leading up to the competition. Her mom would call out the words from the provided list, and White would spell them back.
“I really thought I made the big time,” White said. “It was just fun. It was just so enjoyable. There wasn’t a moment that I didn’t like. The other contestants were nice. We didn’t have much time to interact with each other. But they were nice.”
White advanced through several rounds, but despite her confidence, she didn’t win the trophy. Two syllables foiled her hopes at the championship.
“They gave me out the word piquant,” White said. “And I thought, ‘I don’t know that word on the list.’ And I was just floored, so I just guessed and said p-e-c-a-n-t. And of course I had to sit down. Well, it’s on there. It turns out it’s a French word: p-i-q-u-a-n-t, which means very sharp, like a sharp puckery taste, or very tangy. And my mother and I — they did not give us a pronunciation guide. They just gave us the words — and my mom was giving it to me as ‘pick-went.’ And when they said piquant, I had no idea what they were talking about. So that was the end of that story.”
A 13-year-old boy from Canton, Ohio, would go on to clinch the title. It was the first bee in which boys took the top three spots.
The winning word was dulcimer. When we reminded White, she immediately noted its definition — an American folk instrument. When we asked her to spell it, she did so without pause.
Despite her disappointing run, White didn’t go home empty-handed. She was awarded $40, a decent amount back in 1949. White's mom took her to purchase her first wristwatch.
“That was thrilling, too,” White said. “It was exciting.”
The Scripps National Spelling Bee has since celebrated decades of success, recently handing over the coveted Scripps Cup to its 100th winner earlier this week.
The 22nd bee would be White's only appearance on the national stage. She would never spell in any bee again, but she did pass on the story of her experience with her family.
“I was young because I would look through the picture albums, and I would see pictures of mom and my mammaw on that train to Washington, D.C. That’s when she started telling us about the spelling bee,” Smith said. “And then, oddly enough, my son, who is 47 now, when I mentioned something about the bee the other day, he remembered everything about it because she had told him over the years about the word, about the mispronunciation of the word, where she went, the year. He remembered it all.”
Smith did pick up her mother’s love of reading, but she only entered a few community bees in her adult years, winning one with her team. Smith said her sister and other relatives got the reading bug, too, though her mom remains the most well-read of the family.
Smith does outshine her on the Scrabble board, however, White said. Smith tends to capitalize on the double and triple point squares more than she does.
Still, that doesn’t dampen White's competitive spirit.
