White, Joan W.

Joan Woods White, former society editor at the San Francisco Examiner and women's editor of the Oakland Tribune, died Friday of progressive liver disease at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley. She was 59. Mrs. White became the Examiner's society editor at age 26, a few years after graduating from Stanford University in 1957. She went to work for the Oakland Tribune in 1968.

 In 1973, she made local headlines when she gave birth to her fourth child, Lockey, in a fourth- floor ladies' room near her office in the Tribune Tower. A plaque commemorating the event was hung soon after, saying that Lockey Elizabeth White ``broke all newspaper tradition by being four days early for her deadline.'' The plaque was taken down when the newspaper moved out of the building. Mrs. White left the paper in 1980.

 Survivors include her husband, Gordon White, of Piedmont; a son, Tim; and three daughters, Christy, of Budapest, Hungary; Kerry, of Piedmont; and Lockey, who is a student at Humboldt State University.