A century’s worth of life as a primary school teacher, wife and mother was cause for celebration in the St George home of Ivy Odessa Brathwaite, as family and friends toasted her 100th birthday on Monday.
Despite heavy morning showers, the sun shone in Brathwaite’s smile as President Her Excellency The Most Honourable Dame Sandra Mason came to pay official tribute to the island’s newest centenarian.
Her children Jane and Roger Brathwaite told Barbados TODAY it was a great day for the Brathwaite family, with Jane admitting: “I think I am the most surprised person. I would never have conceived of the idea that my mother would live to be 100 years old. So I am pleasantly happy to be here to share it with her.”
She recalled fond memories of growing up, including spending most of her holidays with her mother, who was trained as a teacher at Erdiston College and gave a third of her life to the profession.
“She was a primary school teacher at St George Girls School for most of her career. She had all the holidays – Easter holiday, Christmas holiday – so she was at home a lot during those times, and I remember watching her correct the books and looking over her shoulder to see if she doing it right. And she was always telling you to speak properly,” Jane said.
Her brother also remembers his mother as an educator at home, especially when it came to handwriting skills.
“We could not get away with not writing properly… we had to have proper handwriting,” Roger said. “The one downside of when your mother is a teacher is that there isn’t anywhere in Barbados the two of us could go and people do not know who you were, till this day. People would come up to you and say, ‘She taught my mother, she taught me’, even overseas.”
Though his mother had a strict side, she remained a gentle and kind person who loved to tend to her plants in and around her home, Roger added.
“From what she told me, basically as a child growing up she was always interested in agriculture…. One of the sad things is that as a result of the two falls she has had, she can no longer get out into the garden to actually see her plants and water them, tend, and care for them. That really is one of her passions.”
While describing her parents’ close bond, Jane also recalled her mother’s independent streak. Married to the late Hugh Clarendon Brathwaite, a former deputy auditor general, she was never afraid to go her own way when the occasion demanded it.
“Back in the day, the sort of husbands these women had, the husbands were very dominant,” the daughter recalled, “So I remember her defying my father one summer holiday, and insisting that she was taking my brother and me for a week’s holiday down Martins Bay where her father had a house. My father refused to come with us [and] the three of us went and we had a wonderful time. When we came back here, you could see that he had missed us so bad and regretted that he did not come along. That was one of my fondest memories when she stood her ground.”
(SB)
The post Newest centenarian a teacher in school and at home appeared first on Barbados Today.
