PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. \u2014\u00a0The Bay Pines VA has long been known for its prominence in Tampa Bay and the historic land that it sits on.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s at least one untold story there a local veteran is determined to make sure is preserved and shared with everyone he can reach.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a story detailing the career of a woman who was the first African American employee to work at the VA. It\u2019s a story that\u2019s been sitting on a shelf for decades.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
John Makas learning about the life of Deotha Parsons
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Parsons was the first African American employee to work at the VA
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Makas trying to track sown any family members of the late Parsons<\/p>\n
When it comes to history at the Bay Pines VA, there isn\u2019t much you can get past John Makas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s all kinds of stuff in here from Bay Pines from years back. Newspaper articles. All kinds of history of the buildings,\u201d Makas said.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s a hospital coordinator for the disabled American veterans and a regular at the VA\u2019s small portable library.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was fortunate enough to come over here one day and ask a few questions because they were talking about moving this library and getting it digitally enhanced,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I said oh wow, there\u2019s the book.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said this was a book he had seen repeatedly.<\/p>\n
About six months ago he finally opened it up. Page after page, he learned more and more about the life of Deotha Parsons. She had a storied career as a hospital assistant and the first African American employee at Bay Pines VA.<\/p>\n
The treasure trove also included a signed note wishing her well from the late Congressman, C.W. Bill Young, long before the facility was named the C. W. Bill Young Department of Veteran Affairs Medical Center.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s amazing when you think back at the time when she came here, how difficult it must have been, not only to be in that type of an environment when you\u2019re just out of segregation and you\u2019re having to travel god knows how far to get her to the job to go to work,\u201d Makas said.<\/p>\n
The old newspaper clippings detail how she nursed veterans from the Spanish American War, the two World Wars, the Koren War and the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n
\u201cImagine what an impact it would\u2019ve been to actually meet her,” he said. “To sit down and talk to her. Imagine what that would\u2019ve been like. I get goosebumps thinking about it.”<\/p>\n
It\u2019s why Makas is on a mission, looking for ways to preserve the book, its pages and everything inside of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe VA doesn\u2019t have the capabilities to do it here locally. And to be quite honest with you, I\u2019m scared to send it out somewhere because I\u2019m afraid some of it won\u2019t come back,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But he said it\u2019s not his call to make. He\u2019s hoping by sharing the story of Deotha or Dee as she was often called, someone will come forward to help preserve the pages of this book.<\/p>\n
Makas also wants to find family members or people who knew Deotha.<\/p>\n
An article in the book says she died in 1995 at the age of 84. She didn\u2019t have kids, but she had a church family at New Hope Missionary Baptist Church in St. Pete. still around to this day.<\/p>\n
Makas said he\u2019s hoping with that information this untold story can get in the hands of those once close to her and remind them of her life and legacy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. \u2014\u00a0The Bay Pines VA has long been known for its prominence in Tampa Bay and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[274,770,115,596,4368,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,3393,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-42313","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-app-top-stories","9":"tag-community-news","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-pinellas-county","12":"tag-saundra-weathers","13":"tag-st-pete","14":"tag-st-pete-headlines","15":"tag-st-pete-news","16":"tag-st-petersburg","17":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","18":"tag-st-petersburg-news","19":"tag-tampa","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-veterans","22":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}