Four boys were born into the White family. Henry Nichols (1847-1863) was their firstborn. He died of pneumonia at the age of 16. James Edson (1849-1928) became a Seventh-day Adventist minister and is most remembered for his pioneering evangelistic and educational work among African Americans in the Southern United States. William Clarence (1854-1937) also became a Seventh-day Adventist minister. After James's death in 1881, William became his mother's chief editorial assistant and publishing manager. John Herbert (1860) died at the age of three months from erysipelas.