Pazetta Mallette: Mathematician, Native American History Orator, Best All-Around.

Pazetta shares oral history about growing up in Boyce, Louisiana on a former plantation, living in the caretaker’s home with slave cabins on the property; her Choctaw Indian great grandmother Milly being traded by an Indian chief, possibly her father, for a horse as a child; her great grandfather, Revolutionary War patriot descendant Captain Henry Newton Berryman, and his first wife, Helena, a white woman, raising Milly then, him having an affair with her, resulting in a child, Many, neither being slaves; her grandfather Many's warm relationship with Helena; Capt. Henry also having children with an enslaved woman, graduating from West Point in 1817, protecting a black boy from being lynched, giving his enslaved blacks his Natchitoches, Louisiana plantation; Helena protecting slaves; her Choctaw Indian and white father and black mother both from Natchitoches; her father and his brothers marrying black since it was unacceptable for a white woman to marry a mixed race man but his sisters marrying white; her father selling high value paper shell pecans as a farmer; WWII soldiers on family farm for maneuvers, having a lonely soldier at the table every night wanting to talk; attending a four room schoolhouse; being the darkest in family; her father accepted in Creole community as "the old Indian"; being bullied in Marshall, Texas because black kids were jealous she had hair to her waist; relation to Sir Isaac Newton; earning a gold medal in the Texas AAA division public speaking contest and graduating in the top ten in high school, voted Best All-Around Girl by faculty; attending Wiley College, majoring in mathematics, voted Most Beautiful, a Kappa Alpha Psi Sweetheart, joining Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, selected as Miss Junior, Homecoming Queen, graduating Cum Laude; her Creole mother in-law wearing a black dress to wedding in mourning because her son was with a chocolate girl; sister in-law being bothered by her being accepted into the DAR; deciding to identify as black; keeping her Native American heritage a secret; working as a research assistant at Penn State Physics Dept; working at Tennessee State University teaching math and in the Computer Center; her daughter born with club feet, placing them in casts, enrolling her in ballet, resulting in her studying at the School of American Ballet and dancing with Dance Theater of Harlem all over the world; giving talks about the effect of nutrition on disabilities; hunters gathering wild deer, rabbits, squirrel and turkeys for her daughter's dietary needs; giving talks about the contributions and culture of Native Americans; lifting weights five times a week; her maternal ancestors enslaved on George Washington's plantation; feeling a sense of pride discovering her Revolutionary War patriot William Berryman serving in Virginia; for those who suggest we go back to Africa "my lineage was here before you arrived and we fought for the freedom of this country"; father saying to maintain the race, marry someone darker skinned so the descendants can have an identity and be accepted by blacks; tracing oral history by writing a sheriff in Texas who delivered her letter to a white cousin who in turn recommended she join the DAR, then her children's pediatrician's wife, also a DAR member, suggesting she join; giving DAR a try despite the society's history of racism, joining to be a part of what she was entitled to; serving as chapter regent in Nashville, Tennessee, a couple of members transferring out because she was black but the rest embracing her; seeing more blacks in the society and members used to seeing them; "Blacks, Whites and Native Americans, we are all a part of this and we have to work together if we want to make a difference".
Read Pazetta's biography at www.daughterdialogues.com/daughters
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