JACKSON, Tenn. — March 19, 2021 — Trudy Cathy White spoke on the character and legacy of her late mother, Jeannette Cathy, during Union University’s Faith in the Marketplace lecture March 18 in the Carl Grant Events Center.
This year’s Faith in the Marketplace luncheon celebrated the 25th anniversary of the naming of Union’s McAfee School of Business, which sponsored the event. The anniversary was set to be celebrated last year but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Carolyn McAfee Bruner (’61), widow of the late James T. McAfee, Jr. (’61), and her husband Jim Bruner attended the luncheon, along with Tom McAfee (’94), son of James and Carolyn.
“The McAfee family has been a fundamental part of the business school, as well as Union University, for many, many years,” said Jason Garrett, dean for the McAfee School of Business.
White is an author, international business leader and daughter of Chick-fil-A founders Truett and Jeannette Cathy. She began working for the family business when she was 19 and became the operator of a new Chick-fil-A restaurant in Birmingham, Alabama, making her the youngest operator at that time.
White and her husband, John, served for 20 years with the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 10 of those years as missionaries in Brazil. They also founded Impact 360 Institute, which helps Christian students live out their faith with confidence. She recently wrote a book, “A Quiet Strength: The Life and Legacy of Jeannette M. Cathy.” To know White is to know something of her family, she said.
White told the story of how her father invented the chicken sandwich and began Chick-fil-A. She said she remembers in the early 80s when the Chick-fil-A Support Center was being built on the south side of Atlanta and thinking how massive the foundation was — and if the foundation is that important for constructing a building, how much more important is the foundation of building one’s life?
Although she goes into the Support Center often, White said she never thinks about or sees the foundation. But for everything that is seen, it is the result of the unseen, she said.
“When I think about our family and when I think about our family business, I realize that our strength in part is the result of someone who has mostly been unseen, and that is my mother, Jeannette Cathy,” White said. “She was a quiet strength, and she wasn’t strong because she drew a lot of attention from a lot of people. No, she was strong because she knew she needed to focus on what really mattered in life.”
White told her mother’s life story: an only child of a single mother, Jeannette never knew her earthly father. She was a lifelong learner and took up painting at 65. Jeannette worked hard alongside Truett and became a “domestic engineer” when children came along, taking care of the family’s needs, White said.
“Mother knew the importance of a foundation,” she said. “She wanted to have a very meaningful marriage. She wanted to create a happy home for her children and for her spouse. She knew that she wanted to make sure she was able to serve other people, and so she began to focus on what really mattered: building that firm foundation. And what mattered to her was her relationship with her heavenly Father.”
White said that conversations between her parents were often about the idea that biblical principles and good business practices go hand-in-hand, and they were careful to make sure that their business was focused on biblical principles.
At the Support Center construction site, White said she also remembers seeing huge, heavy steel beams that were used to support the building. She thought of her mother’s life and the many “strong beams” she had supporting her: a positive attitude, determination and discernment.
“I wrote this book because I wanted people to know my mom, but I also wrote this book because I wanted people to be encouraged that you can live a flourishing life even in the midst of difficulties and challenges,” she said.
At the end of the luncheon, Tom McAfee spoke about the McAfee family’s legacy. He announced that his family would be making a lead donation to Union University for a new building to house the McAfee School of Business. Read more details here.
The event also celebrated the 136 years of teaching business at Union University. The McAfee School of Business is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, a distinction that applies to only 5 percent of business schools in the world.