Corinne Canaan White

She was born in Loxley, Alabama, to her parents Will and Myrtle Canaan. She worked at the family store, attended Robertsdale High School, and graduated from the University of Alabama with Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Music Education with a concentration in voice. At Alabama, she performed in several theater productions including the lead role in “Carousel,” and as a member of the University of Alabama Million Dollar Marching Band, she traveled with the football team throughout the South and to major bowl games. She would continue to be a huge fan the rest of her life.

After graduation, she remained in Alabama where she taught music and chorus in Sylacauga and Huntsville schools. It was in Huntsville where she met Webb, her husband of fifty years. Together they raised their three children, starting in Alabama and Pennsylvania, then moving to Florida, and in 1972 settling in Cary, North Carolina, where she lived for over forty years.

She had a wide variety of interests. Music was very important to her, and as a soprano she sang for decades with the Raleigh Oratorio Society (now named the NC Master Chorale), singing occasional solos and performing at Carnegie Hall in New York City. She loved baking, knitting, and sewing – winning over forty blue ribbons at the NC State Fair and being called by the local paper “one of the area’s best cooks.” A life-long horse lover, at sixty she expressed that she was not ready for the rocking chair and bought her first of two Arabians. She continued to ride for years to come. Throughout her life, she enjoyed the community and fellowship she found through the Episcopal church.

But more than her love of singing, home arts, horses, and football, she was a beautiful person and wonderful mom and grandmother. She was deeply loved by her family, who often referred to her as the sweetest person they had ever known. She was kind and welcoming and put her family above everything else. She was gracious, respectful, and giving. As a grandmother, she loved playing with her four grandchildren in their early years, teaching them to bake and ride horses when they were young, learning to snorkel and hike with them as they grew, and guiding them as young adults. Anyone who met her would see that her kindness defined her more than anything else.

She will truly be missed by her family; her older son David White and his wife Vivian White; her daughter Charlotte Simpson and her daughter Anna Simpson; and her younger son Stephen White, his wife Michele, and their three children Luke White, Ashley White, and Caroline White. They will miss her lavish dinners at Thanksgiving, her appreciation of the beauty in nature, and most of all the sweetness in her eyes, her smile, and her hugs. She was as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside, and is deeply loved.

A funeral service will be held at 10:00am on Monday, May 13th, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cary, NC, followed by a private burial service. In lieu of flowers, memorials can be made to Front Range Equine Rescue in Colorado Springs, CO.