A Lady with a Smile Reflects on the Past

Mrs. Catherine Delilah Dilbert Tatum was born on the Hill in Diamond Hill on May 26, 1926. She was the seventh and final child of her mother, Belkis Tatum, from Diamond Rock. Her father, Nicodimus Dilbert, a farmer, was born in the Cayman Islands in 1882 and sailed to Roatan with his parents when he was just three years old.

When her mother passed away from pneumonia in 1933, seven-year-old Mrs. Catherine, along with two other young siblings, had to go live with relatives. She moved to West End to live with her mother’s relatives.

A neighbor, a young boy named John Jay Wood, taught young Catherine the alphabet and how to read and write. Less than ten years later, Mr. John Jay would marry Mrs. Catherine. She received three years of primary education from Victor Stanley, who taught children at the Auntie Blanch Hill Schoolhouse.

Life was simple but filled with work and sadness for young Catherine, as she saw very little of her father and siblings. To earn her keep, she had to grate 50 coconuts a day, working alongside others. Once everyone else was in bed, she would unroll her plantain trash mattress and sleep in the corridor of the small house. These simple mattresses were used throughout the island and made from recycled burlap sacks filled with soft and dry plantain leaves.

In 1941, the family that took her in purchased a store in Coxen Hole, and young Catherine followed them to work there. However, her mind was already elsewhere. In 1943, at the age of seventeen, Mrs. Catherine eloped. She traveled on a night boat to La Ceiba and married her 24-year-old neighbor, Mr. John Jay Wood, who had just finished working at the United Fruit Company in La Lima, Cortés.

Mrs. Catherine offered her help whenever she could.

The couple returned to Coxen Hole and took on the responsibility of managing the Litrico Store. Mrs. Catherine’s young husband managed the store, and every few weeks, he embarked on a round-the-island three-to-four-day journey to buy coconuts and plantains from farmers, some as far as Saint Helene. Litrico owned boats named Melly, Blanquita, and Seven Sisters, which were used to transport the produce from Roatan to Tampa.

The young couple rented a house a few hundred meters west of the store in Goat Hill, Coxen Hole. They were blessed with three children: Mary Lynn, John Wilmer, and Dainie Marie.

The municipal clock tower served as a reminder of the passing time, chiming every quarter of an hour. Sam Webster, the clock keeper, diligently oiled and wound the clock every few days. However, due to his occasional indulgence in alcohol, the clock would sometimes be neglected and stop.

In 1961, the couple acquired the Litrico store located across from Juan Brooks school, and they expanded its offerings. At Catherine D General Store, one could purchase not only foodstuffs but also gasoline, building supplies, and more. Mrs. Catherine also offered a unique service, capturing people’s photographs with her Polaroid camera.

There were five Coxen Hole stores that carried food staples, but only one was a general store. In 1950, the streets of Coxen Hole boasted five stores: the Catherine D Store, Warren Grocery, Litrico Grocery, Pollard James Store, and Maud Wilmuth Store.

Mrs. Catherine offered her help whenever she could, expecting nothing in return. Sometimes, it was during a medical emergency when Doc Polo was off the island; other times, it was when someone passed away, and the family had little money for funeral arrangements. In the 1950s, a young boy named Jack “Seven” McField suffered extensive burns from an explosion on a boat. Mrs. Catherine cared for his burns, applying burned motor oil with a chicken feather, and remarkably, the wounds healed well.

After her husband passed away in 2000, Mrs. Catherine carried on with running the store until 2006. “For some reason, I am still here,” she reflects in her soft, quiet voice. Since 2006, she has resided with her daughter, Dainie, and her son-in-law, Bill, in a property next door to where she lived back in 1933.

Today, she sits on a porch, gazing at the bustling and busy streets of West End, just across from Sundowners Bar. Her connection with West End dates all the way back to 1933.

“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.”

Mr. Johnny Returned to Utila to Share the Knowledge he Acquired

Johnny Bodden was born on US Independence Day in 1929, one hundred and twelve days before the Wall Street stock market crash that started the great depression. Mr. Johnny is part of the Silent generation, a cohort of people that worked hard and contributed greatly but were not given the recognition they deserved and were basically overlooked.

He left Utila at 11 years old to go to school on the Honduras mainland. He studied at ‘First Panamanian Instituto de Minas de Oro’ in Yoro, at Zamorano, and then at the United Fruit Company school in La Lima.

Young Bodden’s age was falsified on a document and he was presented to be three years older, just old enough to join the US merchant marine before the end of World War II in 1944. He sailed in the Mediterranean as a mate. He later salvaged ships scattered all around the World after the war, so they could be rebuilt in the US ports. This was a boom time for all kinds of businesses. People had ideas, energy, and optimism.

Everybody seemed to love Johnny Water.

His adventure of traveling around the world began as he sailed all around during and after the war. In 1960s he boarded a Guanaja fishing boat and went out to Colombia’s Quite Seno and Serrano fishing banks. The banks, while claimed by Colombia, were teaming with fish life: gigantic lobster and sharks. As luck would have it Bodden was wounded on a United Fruit Company ship and a nurse took care of him. She was Conchita, a young Honduran with German ancestors. They soon married and started a family.

After 30 years of not visiting the island, he returned to Utila to visit his mother and family. He came back to his island of youth to share his knowledge and show islanders a better way. “I installed the first electric water pump on the island,” remembers Mr. Bodden. It was the time when people were hardy, self sufficient and a bit stubborn. They drank rain water without filtering it, but few got sick.

Mr. Bodden began making water tests to educate Utilans about the pollution of the water they were drinking. He dug a 68 foot well just a few meters from his house in Utila town. That well now is the drinking water for over a thousand Utilans. “Majority of wealthy people-built tanks and cisterns,” says Bodden. But the not so wealthy were always short on water and dependent on often unfiltered water. The business found a strong and needed niche and “Johnny Water” thrived. At the peak of its success his “Johnny Water” bottles were shipped to La Ceiba and Trujillo. Everybody seemed to love Johnny Water and the inspectors from Tegucigalpa and La Ceiba appear on the island once a year to prove that the water is indeed first rate.

Today the main part of the Johnny Water business model is filling, and selling five-gallon jugs of water. A staff of three takes care of that. Robin Vigil has been working at Johnny Water for 16 years, and his coworker Walter Alexander Lopez, has worked at Johnny Water for 13 years. Twice a day they wash and fill 80-100 five-gallon containers with the filtered Johnny’s Water. “The hardness of the water is Key to good, healthy, life giving water,” says Bodden.

The production spikes during Holy Week and holidays, but nothing like it was four or five years ago when Johnny’s Water was producing 200 jugs a day. The competition has gotten fiercer, and many of the fixed costs have climbed up. The plastic bottles and jugs used to pack Johnny Water are imported from Tegucigalpa, and their shipping costs have increased tremendously. So has the competition. There are now four private companies providing drinking water to Utilans. Bushes, Island Springs, and Arches now all make and sell their own ice.

Not all water projects on Utila and Roatan are success stories. The desalination plant funded in 2009 with Honduran tax payer money and financed by the high interest loan of the World Bank only lasted a couple years. “We lend the water to show they were working, “says Mr. Bodden. He remembers the day of inauguration. “When you put wrong people in wrong places it is finished.”