A serious, no-nonsense woman with a heart of gold.
That is how Barbados’ newest centenarian Vinnie Elmena Maynard was described on Thursday by close friends and others not related by blood but who see her as family.
Both in person at her Walkers, St Andrew home, and virtually, many people who learned and benefitted from her over the years expressed joy that she had reached the milestone and listened as she recounted her younger days.
“My father had a car, I used to drive it. He had a lorry and I used to take people around for potatoes …. At that time, you could drive anything, you only had to get a licence and that licence you could drive cars or anything. I stopped after my father started keeping a shop…. I had to [work] at the shop,” Maynard, affectionately known as ‘El’, recalled.
She added that while her peers and her father wanted her to pursue a career in education she remained adamant that she would chart her own path.
“They sent to my father for me to be a teacher. I told him, ‘no, if I suck salt I [still] would be no teacher’, and so said, so done. I came up as a very sharp lady, never used to make sport, not even now,” she asserted.
As a young woman, Maynard had also determined that being a wife and bearing children would not be in her future.
“[Marriage] was not for me. I told my mother when she was alive ‘no marriage for me and no children’ – a [decision] I made very early and I kept it up.”
Even so, her love and fondness for children and her protective nature saw many young ones gravitate towards her.
Once such child was Vance Dixon, who described Maynard as a loving woman who showed a high level of patience with the children she helped raise.
“My Aunt Ell, who I call Ell, in my mind, heart and soul, she is my mother. She raised us with all of the love and caring and compassion she put into us, and today she still tries. Not that it was easy, but in our days the kids were a lil better [behaved] than the current generation. But with all of the heartaches and the pressure we gave her as kids, she still kept trying and going. I really appreciate her for that so much,” she said.
Her son, Jason Dixon, also shared fond memories of Maynard.
He said she was always willing to share her experiences with those who would listen, so they could have an easier life than she did.
“She worked as a man. In those days where women were [expected] to be inside cooking the food, she worked in the fields. She told me how she raised cows and cut cane, then she had a sit-down and really explained life to you.
“She came through a pandemic, natural disasters, for her to be here and actually sit down and explain to us how we just make sport in Barbados as young people – that is how she puts it.” (SB)
