Elsie Machle White was the widow of flying ace Lt. Wilbert Wallace White who died a heroic death in October, 1918. Born in China to Presbyterian Missionary's, schooled at Wooster University, the mother of two, who went on to co-author the book, Our Neighbors, The Chinese under the pen name Vaughan White in 1945. Her life was full of struggles when her mother and sister were killed in Lien Chow, China in 1905 in what is known as The Lien Chow Massacre. After the birth of her two children, one who was deaf, her husband signed up for the Air Corp leaving her alone to raise the children. After his death, she dealt with illness but her strength persisted amid the White's influence and pressure to make a living. At the end of her life she was estranged from her children and living with her brother Victor in a dilapidated-boarded up house in Baltimore, Maryland where she made a life teaching Chinese in the neighborhood.