“I just got out of jail,” she told me. I asked her what her plans were, “I don’t have anywhere to go tonight, but I called my son in Philadelphia.”
I met Margaret Marie White in Nashville. She was sitting in front of a truck stop near I-65. “Have you had anything to eat,” I asked? She told me that she had some popcorn earlier in the day, but that was it. So, we got her a hamburger and fries, which is exactly what she wanted. She went inside the restaurant and quietly took a seat in a booth by herself.
“My great, great grandfather was William Penn,” she said with a smile. Penn was the founder of Pennsylvania. I had to take a second look at her and noticed her eyes were blue and her skin the color of caramel, as opposed to a Hershey Kiss. Penn of course was as white as snow. She then told me, “My grandfather’s eyes were blue too and so were my fathers.”
William Penn was openly against slavery, even though he owned slaves himself. However, he was said to treat slaves much different than most. While I can not verify her story about Penn being a great, great grandfather, I did find it interesting that Penn was once married to a woman whose middle name was Margaret. He married Hannah Margaret Callowhill, who was his second wife in 1696, when she was 25 and he was 52.
On a side note, Margaret Marie White (pictured) was jailed for “Trespassing.” Surprisingly, the arrest was made at a homeless shelter in Nashville where she was previously told to leave.
William Penn once stated, "Men are generally more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children."