“Everyone danced polkas,’’ she recalled. “Everyone in the neighborhood came.’’
Several thousand mourners, their memories of a political giant undimmed by the years, attended the wake for White, who led the city from 1968 to 1984. White died last week at 82 after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2003.
Standing outside the Parkman House, just down from the State House, politicians in suits and overcoats waited with people in windbreakers and blue jeans, people who rarely find themselves on Beacon Hill. They remembered White for sweeping accomplishments, bustling commercial centers and skyscrapers that raised the city to new heights, and for small, personal gestures that often made a lasting difference.
Catherine Sexton, 80, rode the Blue Line from East Boston to thank White for a long-ago kindness. During the 1970s, city workers came unbidden to Sexton’s home after noticing that her son Richard used a wheelchair and asked if the family would like a cut in the curb outside.
“They just rang our doorbell and told us that they saw we had a need,’’ said Sexton, her voice strained with emotion. “They came without being asked. It’s something I’ll never forget.’’
Beside her, state Representative Martin Walsh of Dorchester recalled attending a rally for White when he was a boy, maybe 7 or 8. White was locked in a close mayoral race with Joseph F. Timilty at the time, and Walsh first experienced the energy of a political campaign.
Many mourners said they felt White handled the busing crisis of the 1970s as well as he could and credited his leadership with seeing the city through a turbulent time.
“I think he tried to bring people together,’’ said Joe McAdams, a Quincy resident who waited more than an hour to pay his respects.
Others recalled that White paid a steep political price for enforcing the desegregation order and probably lost any chance he had at running for higher office.
