Less the two months af­ter her hus­band, for­mer prime min­is­ter George Cham­bers was posthu­mous­ly award­ed the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the na­tion's high­est award, Ju­liana Cham­bers col­lapsed and died at her home in San­ta Mar­gari­ta, St Au­gus­tine, on Thurs­day.

Vice chair­man of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment Camille Robin­son-Reg­is broke the news to a meet­ing of the par­ty in Diego Mar­tin about two hours af­ter Cham­bers died. De­scribed as "a per­fect la­dy" by her niece Lou Ann Moo King, Cham­bers died in the bath­room of her home. She was 81.

Moo King said her aunt was de­ter­mined to at­tend the con­ven­tion of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, next Sat­ur­day. Her last pub­lic ap­pear­ance was at the PNM's 50th an­niver­sary flag-rais­ing re-en­act­ment cer­e­mo­ny at Bal­isi­er House on Au­gust 30.

Fam­i­ly sources said short­ly af­ter 7 pm on Thurs­day, Cham­bers went to her bath­room. She had planned to lis­ten to the PNM's Diego Mar­tin meet­ing which was broad­cast live on the ra­dio. Cham­bers' daugh­ter An­drea Wil­son no­ticed her moth­er was in the bath­room longer than usu­al and called out to her but got no re­sponse.

She left the res­i­dence to get a rel­a­tive who as­sist­ed in open­ing the locked bath­room door and found Cham­bers un­con­scious. An am­bu­lance was sum­moned but she was lat­er pro­nounced dead at her home by a DMO. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it was with "sad­ness and re­gret" she learned of Cham­bers' pass­ing.

"She was a con­sum­mate pro­fes­sion­al, hav­ing worked as a se­nior of­fi­cer in the bank­ing in­dus­try but sup­port­ed her hus­band with qui­et dig­ni­ty and deco­rum," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said. The for­mer Ju­liana Ja­cobs, sis­ter of for­mer Guardian Ed­i­tor Carl Ja­cobs, mar­ried Cham­bers in 1956, He even­tu­al­ly be­came T&T's sec­ond prime min­is­ter. It was the same year he en­tered pol­i­tics and joined the PNM. Hedied on No­vem­ber 4, 1997, at age 69.

Cham­bers is sur­vived by her on­ly child, An­drea, broth­ers, Carl and Lloyd, and her sis­ter Ru­by Reyes. She will be cre­mat­ed af­ter a ser­vice at Clark and Bat­too's, Tra­garete Road, Port-of-Spain, Mon­day.