Palmyra woman, 99, says children are a blessing
Ninety-nine-year-old Evelyn Ramroop of Palmyra Village says children are a blessing and should do everything in their power to honour and cherish their parents who worked tirelessly to ensure that they were well brought up.
Being a mother of six herself, Ramroop, popularly known throughout Berbice as ‘Aunty Ivy’, who will be celebrating her 100th birthday in November, said she worked in various fields to raise her children, two of whom have died – one of the hardest things she has had to endure.
Speaking to the Sunday Stabroek from her bottom house in Palmyra, while sitting in her favourite chair, the elderly woman said she was nine years old when she first started to work at the estate. “Life was very hard and I was just eight when my mom died [then] and I started to work at the estate, so we get it hard,” she recalled.
She had a younger brother who has also since passed away. “I had six children, five girls and one son but where two of them come from, them gone” she related as she became emotional and teared up.
She recalled that before she got married she used to work in the backdam. “From the time we meet a backdam, we got to fetch dirt pon you head with basket; a water a leak all pon you face but you can’t stop work you got to work through the sun and the rain,” she said.
“As you get full eye, them transfer you to the other gang. You got to throw manure… Me wuk deh two years and then them transfer me to the bigger gang and then after then we get married,” she recalled.
Asked whether her marriage was a love marriage or arranged she said, “Na love marriage, na back then; you family got to choose.”
She explained that her husband died at the age of 69 but that they had built a good life together. “Long ago pickney, when them married you, you got to stay. Sometime hard, sometime soft but you got to take it and stay,” she said.
‘Aunty Ivy’’s first child was a daughter, Shucilla Jailall also known as ‘Jean’. Jean is now 81 years old, but has never been married nor had children. She resides with Aunty Ivy and has been caring for her for most of her adult life.
After Jean, she then had her only son and other daughters. Aunty Ivy now has six grandchildren and during the interview she joked, “You love your children but you love your grandchildren more.”
She recalled that when her daughter died she (the daughter) had one child who was left in her care, “And I took care of the baby. But he had a good father and up to now the father is very loving to him,” she said.
Detailing how challenging it was raising six children, she said, “It was very hard. You gotta hustle, husband na work fuh sufficient money and then when them meet age for school you got to send them a school.”
She continued, “Me work a estate. Me plant rice. Me cut rice. Me do domestic work for 25 years to bring up me children them.”
However, she said that she is now able to sit back, relax and reflect on life – something she is extremely grateful for.
According to Aunty Ivy, “long ago” they did not celebrate mother’s or father’s day. “Then we never use to know what is mother’s day and father’s day,” she offered. However, she said that
her family makes a special effort to visit and celebrate her on mother’s day.
She advised young mothers to never give up and always work in the best interest of their children. She urged children to be grateful to their parents and “cherish them.”
“The best part is when you get your first child, that feeling, it’s nice. And then some people when them a get them first child, them a pray them want boy, some a say them want one girl but anything that God give you, you have to content with because children are a blessing and he’s the maker,” she expounded.
“Me been get four neighbor, young girl like me and them had daughter so all was nice…”
She said that she and her neighbours together with their children, would go fishing with a small net. “You catch lil crab, you catch lil fine fish, whatsoever and you a makeup because time was hard. But anything you get you make it nice and you sit down with your children and you husband and you eat that is all.”
The elderly woman stressed that she has always advised her children and relatives to never waste food as she often recalls how hard it was to ensure that all of her children were well fed. “Don’t waste food, food is valuable,” she stressed.
Meanwhile, Aunty Ivy said that she has noticed that there is a generational change. She pointed out that long ago neighbours could scold children and look out for them but that seems to be different now. “Me na go lie, me been passionate and if them do anything wrong me use to beat them,” she said.
“Long ago, we days, if you tell them sit down here and don’t move till me come back, that child wouldn’t move, honour parents.”
She recalled that in her days most parents worked in the backdam. “That mother got to get up early and cook to give her husband to cut cane and then she got to hustle from that time, cleanup she kitchen and then go backdam to work…,” she added.
Nevertheless, she said, “Long ago life was nice. I did like it because neighbours and neighbours been a live like you own parents.”
Meanwhile, Aunty Ivy stressed that she is looking forward to attaining her 100th year, God willing. She said she “feel the same” as she has been doing most of what she normally does for herself.
She also praised her daughter Jean for taking care of her. “God had his own plan for her because she never married or had kids. She always saying she don’t want to married and she looking me after,” she said,
Jean said she enjoys taking care of her mother but added that she misses her sister who died as they were very close and that sister would also assist to take care of their mother, who she described as very jovial and talkative.
She said that despite her age, Aunty Ivy loves to go out in her wheelchair and to visit people.