Centenarian enjoys a musical birthday

 

Three generations of family including two sons, Chung and Anthony, and daughter, Francisca, serenaded her in song. There were also musical performances by grandchildren Anton and Alkim Chai Hong, Lindsay Gibbings, Maria Soo Hon and Jeanette Motilal-Boodoo and great grandchildren Mandy Gosine and Mikhail Gibbings. Octavia’s only great great-granddaughter, Jaeda Nicholls, was also in attendance. The evening’s MC was Octavia’s daughter-in-law, Justice Alice Yorke-Soo Hon, who delivered a lively supply of family jokes. Octavia married Chinese immigrant, George Yen Soo Hon in the 1930s. Their son, Gregory, currently lives and works in his father’s ancestral province of Guangdong in South China. He flew in for the celebrations with his wife, Cheryl, and children Alex and Dagny. 

 

Octavia and George bore nine children: Shirley Gibbings (who died in 1995), Chung, Donald, Daphne Narine, Marina Motilal, Francisca Chai Hong, Anthony, Gregory and Francis. She attributes her longevity to prayer and a healthy lifestyle. She was born the very month of the birth of the African National Congress in South Africa, two years after the introduction of the first motorcar to Trinidad and before the First and Second World Wars. Today, she communicates with overseas relatives on Skype and enjoys the company of the younger children in the family whose names she remembers effortlessly. She is the grandmother of freelance journalist, Wesley Gibbings, who writes for the Trinidad & Tobago Guardian.