After working hard to support her own children and lending a helping hand to others her entire life, it was no wonder that Ione Wilma Waterman was surrounded by as much love as she was on Thursday when she celebrated her 100th birthday.
The centenarian was flanked by two of her children, an “adopted” daughter, and other relatives and close friends who showered her with gifts and congratulations at her Barbarees Gardens, Barbarees Hill, St Michael home.
They spoke about her years of hard work and caring nature.
Her eldest daughter, Angela Waterman, who lives in Chicago, United States but flew in for the special day, said that although her mother was a stern disciplinarian, she was also very loving.
“I am very grateful that she has lived to see 100 years…. My mother growing up was a very hardworking, generous woman, very generous. We were not rich but she always helped the less unfortunate in the neighbourhood, and I am proud to say that I love my mother and she has a big heart,” she said of her mother, a former fish vendor who originally lived in Farm Road, St Philip.
She added that the mother of five, grandmother of 14 and great-grandmother of more than 20 “taught us well how to be giving and caring for others”.
Margaret Haynes, who grew up around the Waterman household as an adopted daughter from the age of seven, said the matriarch was not only kind to family but to neighbours as well.
“I was one of the children that came into the neighbourhood and found her, a hardworking lady as you heard. When you pass by Kensington Oval, you see that wall? She worked really hard on that wall, bringing the soft stone to the men so that they could put it up.
“She used to do fish and a day would not go by unless this lady said, ‘Di you had something to eat? Come and get something to eat’…. She always made sure that I had food; a very loving, hardworking lady,” Haynes added.
Though she could not visit in person because of COVID-19 restrictions, President Dame Sandra Mason virtually wished Waterman all the best on her big day and praised her for working hard over the years in not only supporting her family but in raising them to respect hard work.
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