An enigma. A puzzlement. A pioneer. A reader. Very private. Self-contained. Mysterious. Frugal. Unique. Quaint. Uncompromising. Tough.
These were the words used to describe the late Mary Grinter White Wednesday morning in Trigg County Circuit Court, as Circuit Judge Jamus Redd and longtime attorney Geneva Parris took a moment to reflect on White’s legacy — before revealing her portrait to an awaiting gallery.
Born in 1915 to a prominent Trigg County family, she carved an uncharted path all the way to becoming the community’s first-ever female attorney — where she eventually served as the first-ever woman in the 56th Judicial Circuit. She would eventually work as attorney for the City of Cadiz, and tried cases inside those old Trigg County Courthouse walls through her late 70’s and into the early 1990’s.
Her winding road started with educational stops at Hopkinsville’s Bethel College and the University of Kentucky, before a scholarship to Columbia Law School in New York City changed her trajectory — and her look on life.
A final graduation coincided with the beginning of World War II, where she returned to Cadiz to help families navigate the struggles and sacrifices at what was the nearby “Camp Campbell” — now Fort Campbell — before beginning her practice in 1945.
A once active member of Cadiz Christian Church, Redd said she also long served the John L. Street Library as its board chair.
Parris, who called her “Cousin Mary,” said she was “a lovely lady” who possessed intrepid depth and thoughtfulness through her years — and was a woman who laid the groundwork inside of a profession that once largely belonged to men.
Parris noted that “Cousin Mary” made it all the way to New York City by train — first from Cadiz to Princeton, from Princeton to Frankfort, from Frankfort to Cincinnati, and finally from Cincinnati to the Big Apple.
At each stop, she was chaperoned by family or family friends — all men — until arriving up north, where there was no one left to meet her.
Parris also noted that she, herself, attended law school at the University of Louisville four decades after White had, and even then, women comprised only 10% of the class — most of them already owning master’s degrees and PhD’s.
If anything, Parris said she must have gleaned inspiration from the likes of Marie Curie, Amelia Earhart, Annie Sullivan, Hellen Keller, Eleanor Roosevelt, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Dorothy Parker — because there weren’t many women attorneys nationwide from which to glean.
When Parris first arrived at Trigg County in 1982, it was White who knew how to introduce her to the general public.
White’s portrait will be hung outside Trigg County’s Law Library inside the Trigg County Justice Center.
