REFLECTIONS AND TRIBUTE
CENTENARIAN GWEN WATTY began her working life as a teacher at the Girls’ School. Later she became a seamstress par excellence outfitting many a bride among others. She also served as a store clerk and later became the Seamstress at the Cunningham Hospital.
But it is her faith and devotion to her Church that stands out especially throughout her life.
She would read her Bible every day sometimes twice a day and she remembered all of her favourite hymns even as a centenarian.
As a Sunday School teacher, as an active Choir member, a Church Leader, a Girls’ Brigade Officer… and later when she returned to St. Kitts from Canada, as a faithful member of the Hope Methodist congregation, she was always the role model for her children and their friends.
Today we pay tribute to her as a model family matriarch both for her own and extended family, her neighbours and all who knew her.
Her son, Eustace Warner, recalled fond memories of her taking him to the Market on Saturdays and to remembering the many guiding words she dished out – the words of warning that have never deserted him…”Be careful with the company you keep. You can see their faces, but you cannot see their hearts!”
He went on to state, “You will not begin to understand the profound and long lasting influence this amazing lady has had on our lives and it is with great pride and yet humility that I too can say…
“(She) raised us up, so we can stand on mountains;
(She) raised us up, to walk on stormy seas;
We were strong, when we were on (her) shoulders;
(She) raised us up: To more than we can be.”(adapted)
We, Venetta, Lylith and I, (her children) are what we are because we have been raised up on the shoulders of this giant of a mother…
SHE WAS GREAT MOTHER…A GREAT, GREAT MOTHER!”
Al Harris, who paid tribute in her ‘Thanksgiving Booklet’, sums up her life in this way –
“As a wonderful Mother, Grandmother, Great Grandmother, Mother Gwen showed love, dignity, courage, patience, pride, and anger where it was called for…It was a great pleasure to have had the honour of knowing someone as special as Mother Gwen….”
His parting words of “Goodbye, Sweet Angel” would be undoubtedly echoed by the entire congregation who came to bid her goodbye, and those abroad who also loved and admired her but could not be present.
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