Juliana Chambers, simple in life, death

One of the last wishes of Juliana Chambers, widow of former prime minister George Chambers, was for her funeral service to be as simple as her life. Chambers was cremated at the Cinerary, Long Circular Road, St James, yesterday afternoon after a 25-minute private service at the chapel at Clark and Battoo on Tragarete Road, Port-of-Spain.

Chambers collapsed and died at her Santa Margarita, St Augustine, home while preparing to listen to a live broadcast of a People’s National Movement meeting in Diego Martin on Thursday evening. Among the of family and friends who attended the funeral were Chambers’ only child Andrea Wilson, her brother Carl Jacobs, former editor-in-chief of the T&T Guardian, sister Ruby Reyes, and her niece Lou Ann Moo King.  

PNM officials who attended included  Franklin Khan, Joan Yuille-Williams, Ashton Ford, Opposition MP Dr Amery Browne, two former attorneys general— Russell Martineau and Glenda Morean—as well as Chambers’ former co-workers from Royal Bank. RC priest Fr Gregory Augustine told the congregation that Chambers, although she was the wife of a prime minister, chose to lead a simple life. He said her wish was for her funeral to be as low-key as possible, which was “very much reflective of her being.”

He said Chambers was a woman of stature and “could easily have been offered a State funeral, as the wife of a former prime minister. But yet she chose a simple gathering of family and friends, because that is the essence of the woman.” He said people should take example from Chambers and live without “fanfare and fuss.”

Speaking with reporters after the service, Morean said Chambers was “a simple person, down to earth, and she lived and died that way.” Khan said Chambers was a very active supporter of the PNM up to her death. Browne said the Chambers family “represents the best of T&T.”

Jacobs said she was “a tower of moral strength and economic mainstay” for their family. He said his sister “undertook this task with the love, honesty and loyalty that became the hallmarks of her character for the rest of her life.”