A Barbudan great-great-grandmother is today celebrating her 101st birthday.
“It is nothing short of amazing to witness the matriarch of our family celebrate a century milestone. To see Mrs Beazer wrap her arms around her great-great-grandson is nothing short of phenomenal,” a family statement said.
Enid Maudina Warner-Beazer was born on January 6 1922 to Vivian and Florence Warner. She married Tyril Beazer and had five children with him. The union was also blessed with 19 grandchildren, 40 great grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.
Beazer is described as being sharp as a tack and one who tells the most amazing stories. She carries many names but the most treasured of them all is mother, and she is a firm believer in the family institution. She adores her family and would do anything to see them prosper. She always made the tough decisions to make sure her offspring had a good life.
She was a tray lady. In Barbuda, ambitious women would have a tray on their heads or at their sides selling bits and pieces to supplement the family’s income. Beazer was a savvy businesswoman in her younger days who sold candies, snacks and ‘sucka bubby’ on the government wall outside the Holy Trinity School compound.
She targeted the most loyal customers any business could wish for – schoolchildren – and she marked her customers’ faces to make sure they remained loyal to her.
Like most Barbudans, she believed in cultivating her own food, and she practised farming by going to ‘grung’ (the farm plot) with her mother and her husband. They grew their provision, peas, and reared their goats. At home, they kept the yard fowl to supply them with fresh eggs and meat. She always insisted on a good diet, and stale food or leftovers were never a thing in her house, especially having her grandkids stop by.
Being married to her husband was the joy of her life. She took her responsibility of being a housewife very seriously. She loved and cherished her husband; he could never leave her yard unkempt and his clothes were always well washed and pressed to perfection.
She remains a devoted Christian woman who lives by the mantra “there is nothing too good for God”. She attends the Barbuda Holy Trinity Anglican Church, and Harvest Sunday is one of her favourite church celebrations as she gets to contribute something as well as to wear her Sunday best. Beazer is one to dress well. Each outfit she wears must have a hat and some jewellery; she’s one of the community’s best dressed women.
At 101 years old, Beazer is still going strong. Her life and her story tell us that life should be lived while we are alive, the statement added.