Memories of Ursula White

Texas Rose Rustler for 33 years

Born 2/5/1938 Neuwied, Germany

Died 12/8/2023 Cypress, Texas

I was a new member of two months in the TRR in 1990 when I first met Ursula.  She was part of a welcoming committee that invited my husband and me to her church.  We gelled as soon as we realized we both loved antique roses and before long we were sharing cuttings and going to Rose Rustler meetings together.  Her best friend, Gladys Cronquist, became my good friend as well and we three attended many Rustler weekends - the three Roseketeers.  I count those weekends as some of the happiest in memory - the tradition of the Friday Mexican meal, the Saturday rustle, the Sunday breakfast together and antiquing on the way home.  The roses and other plants Ursula brought home went right into her garden, which was lovely.

At the time, I had three little kids that eventually began to see Ursula and Gladys as aunties.  They would sometimes come over and watch the kids just to give my husband and me a break.  Ursula often had a little trinket or toy for them, some of which she made of ceramic.  I remember many fun "ceramic evenings" at her house, drinking wine and painting rose labels, pots, mushrooms and other yard art.  The next day she'd fire them in her kiln and either give them back to us or bring them to the Rustler meetings to put in the plant lotto.  Many older Rose Rustlers have colorful ceramic mushrooms in their gardens from those evenings.  Later, when the kids were older, Ursula would come to my house to help me out with my mother who was in dementia.  She would bring ceramic pieces that were easy to paint and gently guide Mom's brush back to the piece when she started to paint her arms or the table.

These middle years were not the easiest for Ursula.  In fact, she had many incredibly difficult challenges around this time but they didn't stop her from giving of self.  She was a caregiver by nature.  I will never forget the devotion Ursula gave to her husband after his heart attack and her older son after his car accident.  She spent every night in the hospital with them and returned daily to the son's rehab facility when he was transferred there.  When they passed, she was devastated.  Ursula and I were in a car accident together that left her shoulder crushed.  At one point, she got the worst case of shingles her doctor had ever seen.  A couple of years later, she had an adverse reaction to a medication that took a month to resolve.  Gladys and I, plus other friends and family, worked to help her through these challenges as best we could and we were always amazed at how strong she was.  She perservered, eventually managing to come out the other end and keep on going...our German Energizer-bunny friend.

When it came time to make the difficult decision to not live alone anymore, her younger son stepped in to move her closer to him.  She was reluctant, of course, but loved his family so much, she knew it was the right thing to do.  They were very good to her.  As for her precious roses, they were too valuable to be sold with the house!  I dug them up and put the few she really couldn't part with in her new place, and either planted or gave out the others to our Rustler pals.  Even in her new place, she planted as many roses as she could put in her little garden.

I will close with a remarkable story that Ursula told me about coming to America on the ocean liner with other WWII refugee children.  One evening they were playing on the deck of the ship when her new friends dared her to climb over the railing and lean out over the water.  When she did, she realized too late that the railing was slick with moisture and her hand slipped off.  She said, in an absolutely serious voice, that as she started to fall, a hand came out of the mist, landed on her chest, and pushed her back onto the railing so she could grip it again.  She climbed back over the rail and was safe.  She ended the story by saying that she knew I probably would not believe it, but it was the hand of God, and she knew then she was meant to come to America for some reason.  Oh yes, I believed it. 

And America was richer for it.

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