Ms. Vi­o­let Cam­bridge of Bon Air Gar­dens West cel­e­brat­ed her 100th birth­day yes­ter­day. Her cel­e­bra­tions were two-fold as she fought the coro­n­avirus just over a month ago. Fam­i­ly and friends gath­ered at her home to mark the spe­cial oc­ca­sion. 

The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment:

Ms. Vi­o­let Cam­bridge who cel­e­brat­ed her 100th birth­day on May 28th, 2022 said that she knew that she would live a long life. Her fam­i­ly mem­bers and loved ones host­ed cel­e­bra­to­ry ac­tiv­i­ties at her Bon Air Gar­dens home to mark the oc­ca­sion. The cel­e­bra­tions were two-fold as fam­i­ly mem­bers in­di­cat­ed that Ms. Cam­bridge, fond­ly called Ms. Vi, fought the coro­n­avirus just over a month ago.

At the cel­e­bra­tions, two traits were quite ev­i­dent - hard work and faith in God - as fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends re­count­ed fond mem­o­ries of when Ms. Cam­bridge would at times walk to and from work to pro­vide for her fam­i­ly.

“She would get up at five-o-clock to beat the traf­fic. She put her hands to the plough, and took care of her chil­dren. I don’t know any­thing about bush tea” said her daugh­ter, Ava Cam­bridge, who said her moth­er worked as a gen­er­al work­er for a wine fac­to­ry in her ear­ly days. She al­so in­di­cat­ed that her moth­er was a woman of many hats as the moth­er of four, grand­moth­er to twen­ty, and great-grand­moth­er to twen­ty-four made and sold roti and ice cream, pol­ished chairs, made pa­per flow­ers for dec­o­rat­ing, and worked as a do­mes­tic work­er. 

Friends and loved ones gath­ered al­so stat­ed that Ms. Cam­bridge was al­so a spir­i­tu­al work­er as the cen­te­nar­i­an would of­ten pray for per­sons in the hos­pi­tal. Her fam­i­ly al­so spoke of her out­spo­ken­ness as they in­di­cat­ed that she would be open, hon­est, and di­rect on any is­sue and give the best ad­vice. 

Ms. Cam­bridge grew up in East Dry Riv­er, Laven­tille, and lat­er moved to Bel­mont but even­tu­al­ly set­tled in Bon Air Gar­dens where she has been a res­i­dent since 1982. She now spends her days in the gallery of her home with her daugh­ter, care­tak­er, grand­child, and great-grand­child, eat­ing, drink­ing, and lis­ten­ing to gospel mu­sic.

Join­ing the cel­e­bra­tions was Mr. Ernest Web­ster, In­spec­tor I of the Di­vi­sion of Age­ing who con­grat­u­lat­ed the cen­te­nar­i­an and com­mend­ed the fam­i­ly for the ex­cel­lent care of the cen­te­nar­i­an. Mr. Web­ster then pre­sent­ed the fam­i­ly with a Cer­tifi­cate of Ho­n­our and Achieve­ment, a fruit ham­per, and a birth­day cake cour­tesy of the Kiss Bak­ing Com­pa­ny. 

The Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices was pleased to ho­n­our our lat­est cen­te­nar­i­an and en­cour­age fam­i­ly and loved ones, Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives, friends, and neigh­bours to salute our na­tion’s cen­te­nar­i­ans by reg­is­ter­ing for the Pro­gramme. Per­sons may vis­it the Min­istry’s web­site at www.so­cial.gov.tt and com­plete the on­line form or print a down­load­able form for com­ple­tion. Com­plet­ed forms may be dropped off at the near­est So­cial Wel­fare Of­fice or emailed to the Di­vi­sion of Age­ing at opic@so­cial.gov.tt. For more in­for­ma­tion, per­sons may con­tact the Di­vi­sion of Age­ing at 623 – 2608; Ext 2001 to 2009 or 800-OPIC (6742).