Betty Stephenson Saini

Born January 20, 1934, in Raleigh, NC, she was the daughter of James Aubrey Stephenson and Dorothy Esther Lassiter, and was one of the last living grandchildren of Cornelius Jesse “C.J.” Lassiter and Mary Everlina Allen Lassiter.

As a small child, Betty lived in the big family house near Lassiter Mill in Raleigh, run by CJ Lassiter and many of her family members. In the late nineteen thirties, Betty’s mother Dorothy, Aunt Catherine, and Uncle Mike relocated to New York, where Betty grew up for many years as a proud New Yorker.

Betty’s aunt and uncle pursued business endeavors in the Gold Coast in West Africa between 1947 and 1957, when the Gold Coast became independent Ghana. While Betty continued her schooling in New York City throughout those years, she spent some summers in the Gold Coast and fell in love with the jungle and the trees and felt strongly identified with and connected to the people and culture there. Throughout her life she retained a love for Ghanaian and West African culture, one of the formative cultures of her childhood, and remained connected to the African American community in Raleigh for decades, learning and performing with African drumming ensembles and celebrating Kwanzaa every year.

Betty was a 1951 graduate of Julia Richmond High School in NYC and a 1953 graduate of Packer Collegiate Institute, Brooklyn, NY. Following studies in fashion design at Pratt Institute from 1953-1954, she worked for eight years for Helen Lee in NYC as a children's dress designer. Betty loved children and designing children’s clothes, and her favorite part of the dress designing process was pattern making. She continued to love textiles and fashion throughout her life and maintained a subscription to Women’s Wear Daily for decades after stopping work.

In 1961, Betty married Tejbhan Singh Saini, from Punjab, India. They immediately embarked on Tej’s journey as a forest economist for the Food and Agricultural Organization, living in Sudan, Jordan, and Rome, instilling in Betty a continued sense of adventure and love for world travel and other cultures. Over the years with Tej and family, Betty also lived in England and Austria and visited more than twenty countries around the world.

Following the time with FAO, Betty returned with Tej to the States, eventually settling in Bloomsburg, PA, where she raised their daughters and gave demonstrations and talks on India to schools, clubs, and church groups. Betty was a 1976 graduate of Bloomsburg University, where she also completed her studies for her Masters Degree in Art in 1988. She best liked working in ceramic and bronze, and her work reflected the love she had for her childhood time in Africa and featured many elements of Ghanaian culture and likenesses in her sculptures and paintings.

Betty always loved cats, starting with the kittens her family had when she was a child, and continuing through our cat Snowflake, who joined the family in 1973. The love of cats has been a continual presence in Betty’s life.

Betty was an ambitious and proactive mother, advocating for and not stopping until swimming lessons were made available in the elementary school her children attended. She tirelessly shuttled her daughters to gymnastics meets, piano lessons, dance classes, and other childhood events, and she made playdough from scratch. She taught her kids to read with flashcards before they were even enrolled in school and sewed name tags by hand into each article of their clothing. Despite not particularly liking to cook, she learned and regularly made all the favorite dishes from her husband’s Punjabi family, as well as producing snickerdoodles and coconut macaroons out of the Betty Crocker cookbook. Betty returned to Raleigh in 1995 following the death of her husband.

Betty is preceded in death by her mother Dorothy Esther Lassiter, her father James Aubrey Stephenson, her husband, Tejbhan Singh Saini, and her cats Snowflake, Tara 1, and Tara 2.

She is survived by her daughters Kiran Kaur Saini and Maninder "Indy" Saini, and by the cats Minka and Vivaldi, who kept her company and watched carefully over her in her final months.

A graveside celebration of life will be held at Montlawn Memorial Park at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, September 7th, 2024. We welcome Betty’s love bright colors for attire.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to American Heart Association and the Arthritis Foundation.

Brown-Wynne, 300 Saint Mary's Street, Raleigh, are handling the arrangements.