As the Civil War ended in April 1865, orders came down the line: All Confederate officers and soldiers were to surrender their arms at a Union depot. This did not sit well with the Southerners, and many of them chose to hide their arms rather than surrender them.

The period between 1867 and 1869 saw the largest influx, with an estimated 300 to 1,000 Confederate refugees arriving in Belize alone. Many of those refugees continued on to the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, as all were under British rule. The Bay Islands were a less common choice.

The Bay Islands were no longer a British colony by that time. In 1859, the British signed a treaty with Honduras for that country to take over the Bay Islands in 1861. English speakers were allowed to remain without the threat of removal. They were permitted to keep their possessions and land, and they could continue their lives with the understanding that they would submit to Honduran law.

The Bay Islands were no longer a British colony by that time. In 1859, the British signed a treaty with Honduras for that country to take over the Bay Islands in 1861. English speakers were allowed to remain without the threat of removal. They were permitted to keep their possessions and land, and they could continue their lives with the understanding that they would submit to Honduran law.

Basically, the Bay Islanders were left to govern themselves. They were guaranteed freedom of religion and had few Hondurans to contend with. In the decades that followed, they built a remarkable society and established communities where many of their descendants still reside today.

Jackson left on a schooner from Charleston.

Joseph A. Jackson left on a schooner from Charleston, South Carolina, sometime in 1866. He sailed to the Bahamas and then continued on to Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands. Jackson arrived in French Cay in the Roatan Bay Islands in late 1866 and took up residence on Big French Cay. He met a woman from Grand Cayman, and they were married. Their first son, William Jackson, was born in 1868. Their second son, Oliver Jackson, was born in 1871. Their third son, Joseph A. Jackson Jr., was born in 1874.

Joseph A. Jackson was wounded in the Civil War. He suffered a head wound that was treated with a silver plate fixed to his skull. One of his prized possessions when he arrived in French Cay was a military sword. Jackson died in 1878, and his widow returned to Grand Cayman with their three sons.

When they became young men, the paths of the three sons of Joseph A. Jackson diverged. While William stayed in the Cayman Islands, Oliver and Joe returned to Roatan. The two Roatanians married, had children of their own, and lived on Big French Cay.

Some years later, after a hurricane, Oliver moved across the bay to the main island. This is where the main town of French Cay is today. Joe remained on Big French Cay, where he raised several children. One of his sons was Darwin Jackson, who, as a young man, built a schooner and opened a store on Big French Cay. Schooners at the time were commonly used to bring supplies from the Cayman Islands and Belize to French Cay. Darwin Jackson was Albert Jackson’s father.

Albert Jackson worked hard as a young man. He built and owned many boats. He became a shrewd businessman and built a shrimp packing plant called Agua Azul. Early on, he saw the potential of tourism on the island and went on to build a resort with scuba diving tours called Fantasy Island Beach Resort. This resort put Roatan on the global tourism map and became popular with Central American presidents and U.S. government officials for hosting reunions and meetings.

Joseph A. Jackson’s Civil War sword was passed down through the generations and came into Albert Jackson’s possession in the 1990s. Albert was the great-grandson of Joseph A. Jackson, making him a direct descendant. Albert showed me the sword that same year in his office. I held the sword and removed it from its sheath. It was in perfect condition. As I held the sword, I couldn’t help but think back to all those Civil War battlefields that the sword was likely a part of. I wondered how it found its way, 130 years later, into the small town of French Harbour. Albert left his great-grandfather’s sword in good hands, and I will ensure it passes into good hands after me.

Upon closer inspection of the sword, it bears inscriptions on both sides of the handle. One side is engraved with the words “Mansfield and Lamb, Forrester, R.I.” An engraving on the other side reads “U.S.,” followed by the initials “C.E.W.” and the year “1865.”

Further research into Civil War-era weapons revealed that Mansfield and Lamb were manufacturers of swords and other military weapons from the 1840s to the 1860s. They sold these weapons to the U.S. Army and private buyers. The initials C.E.W. represent Charles E. Wilson, the person who inspected the sword.

I hope whoever possesses the sword in the future decides to unsheathe it on April 9, 2065, and remembers the history it represents 200 years later.

Robert McNab, along with his wife, Margret Crawford, immigrated to Cape Gracias a Dios on the northeast coast of Honduras. They arrived in 1835 from Edinburgh, Scotland. The English had a settlement on the cape, and there was a fort manned by British soldiers. A few settlers also tried to make a living there.

While there, Robert McNab heard about the Bay Islands to the west and decided to relocate there. The archipelago was beginning to attract British subjects from the Cayman Islands and beyond. When his party reached Roatan, they settled on one of the three cays inside the French Harbour channel.

There is an interesting account of the McNabs from a few years later. In 1840, an Englishman named Thomas Young, an employee of the British Central America Land Company, was on his way to Black River. His objective was to establish an English colony on the Mosquito Coast of Honduras. En route to Black River, Mr. Young’s schooner encountered a problem with the rudder and had to seek help in French Harbour.

Thus the town of French Harbour was started.

Mr. Young states in his writings that a Scotsman with a large family was the only person living there. The Scotsman that Mr. Young refers to in his writings can only be Robert McNab. Young describes the family as well-established in French Harbour. Since the Scotsman was a boat builder by trade, he repaired the schooner for Mr. Young. Mr. Young’s account states that the family was in the process of building a small schooner to trade with Belize, the Cayman Islands and other ports.

Around this time, the Jones family also settled in the town. The two island families began to marry into each other. Thus, the town of French Harbour was founded. Curiously, no one seems to know for sure why the town was called French Harbour, since it was settled by Scots. There is an old, commonly heard story that two Frenchmen were the first people to live there, and thus the place became known as French Harbour.

Robert and Margaret had a total of seven children: five boys and two girls. From 1840 to the present day, descendants of Robert McNab and Margaret Crawford have owned and operated all types of boats. They owned commercial fishing boats, such as shrimp trawlers, lobster boats, and conch boats, as well as general cargo vessels, freighters and, lastly, passenger ferries.

A smaller group stayed behind in Punta Gorda, where they remain to this day a thriving, dynamic community.

Gradually, the Garifuna diaspora spread all over the Central American coast of the western Caribbean, from Livingston in Guatemala to Puerto Limón in Costa Rica. Here on Roatan, Punta Gorda remains a compelling place to visit with unique foods, dancing and their unique language, which contains some French and English words. Until recently, most houses in PG, as it is popularly known, were wattle and daub with palmetto thatch. The Garifuna culture revolves around fishing using handmade dugout canoes with a small amount of subsistence agriculture, but with the recent influx of visitors, most of the economy revolves more around tourism.

The second most important permanent settlements were of enslaved people and slave owners who originated mostly from Cayman and Belize, beginning in the 1830s, mainly after 1834, when slavery officially ended in the Cayman Islands. The Bay Islands population rose exponentially every year and peaked in 1844.

In 1838, with the overwhelming influx of English-speaking settlers, the Spanish authorities declared that all settlers should apply for residence with the authorities in Trujillo. This created some dissatisfaction, at which the settlers appealed to the Superintendent of British Honduras (Belize), Col. Alexander McDonald.

Bay Islands were a center for agriculture in the western Caribbean.

Claiming harassment by the Spaniards, McDonald, a fervent patriot itching for a chance to mix it up with the Spaniards, preceded to Roatan, where at Port Royal, he landed and proceeded to lower the Central American flag and raise the Union Jack. No sooner had he sailed away than the Spanish Commandant, Juan Bautista Loustrelet, lowered the Union Flag and hoisted the Central American flag again. This act so infuriated McDonald that he returned, clapped the Spaniards in irons and sailed them to Trujillo, where he abandoned them on the beach and warned them never to return.

The English settlers enjoyed this protection and were helped in part by the fact that the newly independent Honduras had its own problems of nation-building on the mainland. The islands flourished and even had their own local government set up by the English authorities from Belize. Settlements were formed coastwise around the islands in Utila and Guanaja and on Roatan in Flowers Bay, West End and Jobs Bight, with the main center of population gradually becoming Coxen’s Hole, while Port Royal became less popular and eventually abandoned until the 1960s with the arrival of the first group of expatriate Americans and English.

In 1852, the Bay Islands were recognized as a Crown Colony, and the population under British protection thrived with communities popping up everywhere. By 1858, their numbers reached nearly 2,000. The Bay Islands were a center for agriculture in the western Caribbean and the mainland; boat building began as a Bay Island industry. Sadly, or tragically if you ask a modern-day Bay Islander, pressure was mounting from the U.S. Congress, who claimed that Britain’s incorporation of the Bay Islands as a Crown Colony was in direct infringement of the Monroe Doctrine and by default the Clayton-Bulwer non-colonization treaty.

Britain was forced to cede the Bay Islands back to the Republic of Honduras, an island whose languages and culture were English and Garifuna, not Spanish. Although disappointing, this didn’t really impact the Bay Islanders, who kept flourishing with little interference from an indifferent, incapable central Honduran government.

The island economy diversified from agriculture to shipbuilding and commercial fishing. Growing up around the sea, islanders were excellent seafarers, and beginning in the 1930s, many “shipped out,” taking well-paying jobs on merchant ships, later oil field supply vessels and river-going tugs around the U.S. and the rest of the world.

Some of these adventurous seamen stayed off on the Gulf Coast and learned about shrimping and came back in the 1960s to start up what was to be the largest fishing fleet in the Caribbean. This initiative and tenacity eventually led to the beginning of the dive industry in the Bay Islands.

This later led to the construction of the first cruise ship terminals, which became the catalyst for the development boom in the late 1990s, bringing with it newfound opportunities, industries and prosperity. Many of the descendants of those English and Scottish immigrants or freed slaves with names like McNab, Elwin or Bodden are building your houses or checking you in for your flight back; maybe a smiling young Garifuna lady is taking your order at a seafood restaurant. This is where they have come from.

And what of the old nemesis, the mainland Spaniard, once the foe of the English? They are now here to stay, completely integrated into our melting pot of a community.

With the beginning of development in the 1990s and demand for skilled labor, mainlanders came to the islands in droves and planted roots, much like the 1830s settlers. They thrived, and the second generation of these settlers are now born islanders who speak English and make up around 60 percent of the population.

So, in preparation of their arrival Dullie anchored the boat by the ble rocks at the entrance of French Harbour lagoon and crawled back into his hole. Dullie waited, but they never came. A new judge took over and decided to dismiss the case as no one got hurt. On another occasion some custom officials came to French Cay to search Dullie’s boat, but he fired a couple shots at the whole crew and the Official told the captain to turn around and get the hell out of there because that guy was crazy.

On one occasion, the custom officials obtained a life boat belonging to Charlie Osgood who got it of the SS Snyg that ran agroAZund off Crawfish Rock in 1899. Upon arriving in French Cay, the officers attempted to confiscate Dullies boat and contraband. They were soon greater by the shouts of his booming voice: “the first man to step foot on this beachhead will be a dead son of a bitch.”

Dullie had the reputation of being a tough, but fair man. Another islander once said something about him behind his back one day and he found out. Dullie confronted this man about it saying — “admit it and live, or deny it and die” — to which the island man shuddered, admitted it and then apologized, Dullie let him go.

Someone opened fire through the window.

A few years later the family was going through a dispute regarding property. Two cousins involved were scared of him and what the outcome would be so, one day these two brothers, a friend and a cousin got together.

After drinking all morning, they saw Dullie casually walking down the street with his gun over his shoulder in a sack and accompanied by his 12 year old son Joe. Someone opened fire through the window shooting Dullie. It was January 28, 1935.

My dad Archie Jones always said he didn’t think the man who took the blame for the killing actually did it, as this man was near sighted and not a good shot with a rifle.

This man ran away to Belize to live and his brother soon followed him there with his family. The third cousin in the group was a boy of 15 who went away to work on the sea and joined the US merchant Marines. Forty years later, this boy retired back to Roatan and on his deathbed, he told his son and other family members that it was actually him who fired the gun that killed Dullie and not my cousin who took the blame.

He said this was the one act that he regretted his whole life. This man’s son and Dullie’s grandson turned out to be really good friends and drinking buddies. One day at Romero’s bar and restaurant the man’s son revealed his father’s death bed confession to his friend, Dullie’s grandson.

They both agreed it was water under the bridge and that it would not affect their friendship in anyway. They embraced each other with this promise. Dullie’s family could now find closure to this story. All persons mentioned in this article have since passed on.

He ate some of the food she left out for him and went to his room to get his passport, but couldn’t find it. He began to search the room, and eventually found where his wife had hidden it. She did not want him to go.

When Mr. Cleary arrived in French Harbour, Mr. Jackson was still asleep. His companion Victoria Jones did not want Cleary to wake him up, as she did not want him to go on the trip either. Darwin had been up all-night drinking and was frustrated with the many delays he was experiencing Cleary Jones woke Darwin up anyway and they left and boarded the Night Hawk. By 5pm, the entire crew was present for departure: Darwin Jackson, Daniel Gómez, Cleary Jones, Roy Bodden, Felix Bodden, Dick Dixon, Sam Collins, Charles Hyde, Arlenton Godfrey, Nathan McKenzie and an American Scott Harris.

A Hybur ship sailed from French Harbor to Belize on Monday evening, December 20. When they arrived Tuesday morning, Captain Willie Elwin Inquired about the Night Hawk and was told she never docked. He called Captain Myrl Hyde in French Harbor to contact Albert Jackson and let him know that something was wrong. The Night Hawk was not in Belize. A search was organized, which included planes that flew between Roatan and the Belize Cays, but nothing was seen or found.

A few days later, some 50-gallon drums were found drifting ashore on Utila. One of the drums had the initials E.C., which stood for Evans Cooper. He owned a store in Oakridge and had sent drums to buy Kerosene in Belize on the Night Hawk. On inspection, you could see that the drums had been on fire. All kinds of rumors swirled around. One theory was that in the rush to sail, the stove fell into the sea while it was still connected. Perhaps the fuel line was not connected properly to the gasoline engine, and it either caused a fire or an explosion.

Some 50-gallon drums were found drifting ashore on Utila.

When the Night Hawk disappeared, I was in Nicaragua, shrimping at the time. When I got back home in April of 1972, the rumors about what happened were still the main topic of conversation in the small town of French Harbor. I decided to see what I could find out about what happened for myself.

I went to visit a friend, Mrs. Iva Whittaker, whom I had known since I was a child. Our families had been friends for generations. She lived on Big Bight on the North side of Roatan, on a hill with an unobstructed view of the ocean. As it got dark, she was in her yard making a fire to deter sandflies. She saw a flash on the horizon, and a fire that burned for a while. She was home alone, so no alarm was made. Big Bight was very isolated at that time, and I believed what she told me.

My theory is that when Ida saw the flash, around sunset, the men on the Night Hawk would have likely been making coffee. When they lit the stove, it exploded, causing the fire to spread very quickly. This spread instantly to the engine room, where the fuel lines and gasoline were located. This caused an even bigger explosion, which was the Flash that Ida saw, followed by the fire.

Other rumors were that they were hijacked, and the boat set ablaze. There were reports that the crew had been seen in Cuba. The Night Hawk and crew met their fate that night about ten miles north of Big Bight off the North side of Roatan.

“Life was great back then,” remembers Mr. Austin nostalgically. “My first memory is of playing maypole and playing baseball on the same spot where the baseball field now is.”
Little Austin received little basic education on Utila and as a teenager he was sent to a high school run by Jamaicans in San Francisco ‘Frisco,’ Colón. The mainland school had an island flair as it employed teachers from Roatan and Bonacca. Mr. Austin graduated with a diploma and soon was offered a job at the United Fruit Company.

He was there for four years, graduated with a degree and was soon working as a “timekeeper” for United Fruit Company in La Lima, Cortés. His boss was the infamous Walter Turnbull, of the United Fruit Company. Mr. Austin decided to increase the pay rate of the workers from 19 to 20 Lempiras, he said Turnbull was furious. “He shouted: “Boys you cannot do that,” says Mr. Austin.

He lasted two years until the general strikes of 1954. The civil disorder began when President Juan Manuel Gálvez proposed a national eight hour workday and extra pay for work on holidays. The workers labor strike first began in Tela in April of 1954 then spread to the docks of Puerto Cortés. The protests eventually halted 25,000 of the company’s workers in Honduras and 15,000 workers from Standard Fruit. After 69 days the strike was resolved with increased pay and recognition of labor unions.

Mr. Austin eventually married Jane Bodden, an Utilan, but was hardly home. The absentee marriage never really worked, and Mrs. Jane moved to Miami.

He landed a passage on a boat heading to the US from Tela. Mr. Austin started working on “five hatcher ship” running passengers and cargo between Florida and Brazil, Buenos Aires and Tierra del Fuego. “I had 22 birthdays in Tierra del Fuego,” says Mr. Austin. He worked on the ship as AB (able seaman) sailor until 1976.

In 1959 his ship was docked in Havana harbor when the Cuban Revolution broke out. Castros “Barberos” were entering Havana and Mr. Austin found himself in a middle of a shootout. “There were bullets flying everywhere,” remembers Mr. Austin. “We hid under the bed of the hotel than sneak out back to the ship.” To give him a better chance at reaching safety Mr. Austin dressed up in woman’s shawl.

I am most proud of my children.

When he finally returned to Honduras, he found work at a cattle farm in Limoncito, Colón. After two years he arrived with 62 heads of cattle on Utila. He married and ended up having nine children.
“The bible says honor your father and your mother,” says Mr. Austin pensively. He has a wrinkled, white skin and deeply set-in eyes. “I am most proud of my children,” says Mr. Austin. “I have nothing to regret.”

Mrs. Onyx spent the first eight years of her life in La Ceiba where she attended “Charles Elliot” open school. She was an out of wedlock child and receiving her father’s last name took some time.

When she was just a couple of years old she went to live with her grandmother, Flourene Hynds, in Lucy Point near Coconut Garden. Her grandmother was an active member in the island’s Methodist church. All-in-all in 1930s there were 12 Methodist churches scattered through Roatan. The Westley Methodist church in Coxen Hole was the islands biggest. Bethesda Methodist church in Flowers Bay was the island’s oldest church building. Reverend Fred Cooper from Utila was the minister there. Ebenezer Methodist church in Coconut Garden was the closest one for Mrs. Onyx to attend.

Mrs. Onyx remembers in late September of 1941 a “Nicaraguan” category four hurricane battered Flowers Bay especially hard. The entire roof of the Bethesda church was blown apart. Many people lost their homes, but a sense of community was strong and the houses and structures were rebuilt soon. “Within a week it was up,” says Mrs. Onyx, about the rebuilding of the church’s roof.

Life for her was full of diversions and activities. “We used to have fun, we had picnics, maypole, plat pole,” remembers Mrs. Onyx who graduated from sixth grade.
She married at thirty-two. Her husband was Ewans Stewart, a preacher and a sailor from Flowers Bay. So, in 1961, Mrs. Onyx moved to the “Tom” area of Flowers Bay. Her home was just fifty paces from Roatan’s oldest church structure, the Bethesda Methodist church.

Her husband worked as a shipmate on Egoral, a boat belonging to the Litrico family. She had made several trips to Belize and Utila, and one memorable trip to Guanaja.
She became a housewife looking after the house and the couple’s one child – Allan. Mrs. Onyx participated in Church as much as she could. She would sing gospel hymns. She recalls “Blessed Assurance,” and “O Come, All Ye Faithful” with particular fondness.

She would grow cassava, popo – or sweet potatoes, bananas and plantains. The family had a cow, a horse and some pigs. There would be plenty of fish for the taking. She would just drop a line outside of the channel in Flowers Bay and grunts, yellow tails and snappers would readily bite the hook.

I can still hear the animals when they holler.

Old age has brought challenges. Mrs. Onyx has been blind since her early 80-ties. She spends her days sitting on a tall wooden chair on her porch facing the sea. There she listens to the sound of the wind, to the sea, the breeze moving the leaves of sea grape trees and caressing her face. “I can still hear the animals when they holler,” says Mr. Onyx. “I am proud of so many things. I still can walk.”

Her son Allan had a stroke, and was disabled, he now lives in the same house as Mrs. Onyx. Her granddaughter Nelcian takes care of both of them. She cooks and sweeps the modest wooden, unpainted house. “Honor your father and your mother and your days be prolonged,” says Mrs. Onyx in her soft, silky voice explaining how she arrived at her old age.

Dennis was born in 1973 in Tela, and he moved with his mother Tomasa to Mango Creek, Independence in Belize when he was one year old. She worked at a banana farm and mango farm in what was then a British Colony. Dennis’ mother is a Garifuna from Triunfo de la Cruz and his father Gell is from La Mosquitia.

He is a self-taught artist. “I drew everything that is around me,” says Luma about his painting days as a young boy growing up in a Belizean seaside village. When he had no money for paints, he would make paints out of plant seeds and discarded items he would find on the street.

Luma remembers being a boy who always found a way to paint. “I was driven to do it… It was something natural in me,” remembers Luma. A Mexican couple, who were visiting tourists saw little Dennis painting and decided to pay for his education at Miguel De Cervantes art school in Quintana Roo.

After a few years he found his way to Roatan. It was 1991 and the island was just starting to register on horizons of travelers and divers. Luma struggled at first, but eventually found a way to support himself as an artist. In 1990s the island was very much off the beaten path. It was like a rich, green canvas waiting to be embraced by artists. “It was beautiful: trees and white sand beaches,” Luma remembers Roatan from that time. “Art is Life. Life is Art. Everywhere you turn around you see some beauty.” He had seen Roatan grow and develop from a sleepy island to a booming tourist destination.

Luma’s art has been echoing that beauty that is quickly disappearing and being replaced. He paints large scale murals, sometime underwater seascapes filled with color, life and sea creatures: octopi, sharks, dolphins. His murals can be seen all over Punta Gorda. “I want the people to know about the Garifuna Culture and be inspired by it,” says Luma. He recently illustrated a book about Garifuna culture.

Luma’s art has been echoing that beauty that is quickly disappearing and being replaced.

Now Roatan is booming and Luma has found his stride focusing on art that resonates with his Garifuna roots. He illustrated the book of Garifuna history. “I am creating emotion that is positive,” says Luma while he stands in the back of a nondescript apartment in West End. His studio is an inspiring backdrop as it faces a wall of green plants and trees.

Luma can’t sit still; he is always up looking for places that could become the canvass of his work. “I do acrylic, I do oil, I do synthetic, I even paint on cars,” says Luma. “It is really hard for me to stop on one thing. The world is really diverse.”

Right now, the most important things in Luma’s life are being recognized by a younger generation and creating awe. “I am proud when a youngster stops by and admires it… That fills me up with joy,” says Luma.

He works with children to create murals. One of his projects is painting a 10 foot by 20-foot mural in front of Sunrise Church in Sandy Bay. Some of his legacy is working with island youth on large murals. “I can be painting all my life, but without a legacy I am not leaving anything,” says Luma.

Americans considered their bananas as a much more important commodity. In early 1942 Germany began targeting banana boats leaving Honduran and other Central American waters, in an attempt to undermine morale. The unarmed ships of the banana companies experienced serious losses.

In the United States, however, bananas were deemed to be of paramount necessity, not only for the general morale of the population, but also for the banana’s nutritional value to the nation’s diet.

Thus, banana exports from Honduras remained steady during the war. United Fruit’s catchphrase during the period became “Every banana a guest, every passenger a pest!” It was signaling that no space would be reserved for anything but the valued fruit.

Bananas were Deemed to be of Paramount Necessity

In February of 1942 United Fruit lost the SS San Gil. That loss was followed by the SS Esparta in March. Between April and July, is the period that the German U-boat captains called “The Happy Time,” 16 more United Fruit ships, averaging 4,000 tons each, were sunk. All in allover 150 Honduran crewmen lost their lives. During the war, over 80 banana boats from Central America would be sunk.

Standard Fruit had purchased four destroyers left over from WWI from the US Navy and converted them into merchant vessels designated to transport bananas. At the start of WWII, these were leased back to the Navy, and sent as cargo boats, to help break the siege of Corregidor in the Philippines but arrived too late.

In response to the alarming loss of merchant shipping, the U.S. Navy began to build anti-sub bases across the Caribbean. In November 1942 Puerto Castilla was chosen as the base for three Catalina long-range flying patrol boats. These amphibian planes would patrol the Bay Islands on a daily basis.

In its three years of existence, the base would pump over $400,000, in 2020 value, of much-needed money into the local economy. Unfortunately, the naval bombers chose for its bombing practice the mile-long island of San Vicente, lying off Santa Fe. That island was sacred to the Garifuna people.

By the end of the war the landscape of the island, now known as Cayo Blanco, had been completely destroyed.

The German operations in the Caribbean suffered a heavy blow when on Bastille Day, July 14, 1943; the Free French forces liberated the island of Martinique. The Axis submarines lost their base of operations. From then until the war’s end, only two more banana boats would be sunk.

She was born on the third of September 1931, 88 years ago. Doña Eufemia is quite independent and gets around with no difficulty at all. She lives with one of her daughters, but up to a few years ago, before the roof of her small home deteriorated, she lived alone.

Miss Eufemia is quite healthy, even though the findings of an Ophthalmologist she visited recently were not that reassuring. “According to the eye specialist, my mother only has five percent of her vision left,” says her daughter Maria Lopez. “But she could still thread a needle, and she sees everything.”

Miss Eufemia’s memory is as clear as her vision, and she remembers her childhood days with fondness. “We were poor, and our parents couldn’t afford to buy us toys, so we found ways to have fun,” she says. “There was a type of grass that grew at the edge of the sea, we would cut it, wash it and use it to make dolls, that how we played.”

Miss Eufemia had a strict mother who taught her how to show respect and salute the elderly or suffer the consequences. “I was an obedient child and showed respect to my elders, but I was scolded for walking about,” she says.

As a child, Miss Caballero attended Juan Brooks primary school on the west side of the island for six months. At the beginning of the week, she would paddle to Coxen Hole and spend the weekdays at school before paddling back home on the weekend.

She grew up at a time when there were no roads, electricity, wooden or cement homes. “When I was growing up, we would walk bare foot on the edge of the sea, because there was no road, and we had to be home before sunset because there were no lights,” she says. “The houses were made of mud walls and cohune leaf top, but we were safer and happier back then.”

Miss Eufemia’s father took care of his family by sailing to Belize in a dory where he’d purchase provisions for a small shop that was run by her mother. “My dad would leave for three days and return on the fourth day with a drum of chicken, corned beef, powdered milk and such for the shop,” she remembers.

She had her first daughter at a young age and had planned to marry her first love, but her groom-to-be ran off to the mainland and married someone else. She eventually met and married the second man in her life, and they procreated 13 children, 12 girls, and one boy, of whom she has outlived all but five of her girls.

‘Our parents couldn’t afford to buy us toys.’

To help take care of her family, Miss Eufemia washed clothes in Oak Ridge and grated coconut in Jones Ville. “I would grate from 100 to 200 hundred coconuts a day for them to make oil,” she remembers.

In addition to washing clothes and grating coconuts, she also baked. “I had my ground where I planted sweet cassava, sweet potato, and coco (Taro root), which I would use to make bush cakes to sell,” she said. “I still bake Johnny Cakes and buns, and when I can’t do it, my daughter does.”

As another way of making ends meet, she would get up at 2:00 a.m. and paddle to Sandy Bay, where she would sell conch at five cents a pound.

Miss Eufemia is the mother of 14 children, grandmother of 33, great-grandmother of 36, and great-great-grandmother of 4. She remembers when neighbors and friends would share what little they had. “Today, you could give your neighbors all you have and never get anything in return,” she says. “The Bible says you should not only open your hands to receive but also to give.”