Barbados Today

Retired vendor Lilian Williams celebrated her 100th birthday surrounded by family and friends at her Bibby’s Lane, St Michael home.

Her daughters Eileen Bryan and Norma Sobers described her as a hard worker.

“It was just myself and my sister, so we had to do the same things that boys would have done. Get up and get some work done before we go out to school and we had to come home in the evenings and do the same thing again. [We would] do things to help them as they were always out working,” Sobers said.

She was joined by her sister Eileen who said that their mother was a vendor as she sold sweet potatoes and other ground provisions in and around the environs of St Michael.

“She was self-employed. She used to sell potatoes and things. She had her mule cart and she would get up and go 5 o’clock in the mornings,” Bryan said.

Bryan said their mother was a devout Christian and grew up attending the St Matthew’s Resurrection but she now attends Bibby’s Lane New Testament Church of God.

“My mother, she went to St Matthew’s all her early years but after both of us went away [to England] she had a problem with her feet so she stopped at New Testament Church of God,” she said.

Dame Sandra Mason presented Williams with a bouquet of flowers as well as a birthday card from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, a card from herself as well as toasted and sang Happy Birthday to Williams who was born on October 28, 1918. (LG)