OZELINE BARRETT (PEARSON) WISE, 1903-1988

Satyra (Pearson) Bennett and Ozeline Barrett (Pearson) Wise and their two brothers were the children of Frances Lavina (Gale) and William B. Pearson; their father was for many years pastor of St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church in Cambridge, Mass., the oldest black church in the city (established in 1873).

SPB was born in 1892 in Rock Hill, Jamaica, and OPB in Worcester, Mass., in 1903. After the family moved to Cambridge, Mass., SPB graduated from Cambridge Latin School, and in 1913 from Wilberforce University in Ohio. She then taught at McKinley Institute in Lynchburg, Va., before her marriage in 1919 to Cyril George Bennett. Their son, George Barrett Bennett, was born a year later. SPB returned to Massachusetts and for more than thirty years worked as a linotype operator for a number of newspapers in the Boston area.

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