Guyana’s oldest, Ismay Spooner, dies at 112

Jan 09, 2013 News

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By Leon Suseran
Guyana’s oldest died peacefully at her Little Africa, Skeldon, Corriverton home yesterday.
Mrs. Ismay Spooner, who turned 112 years a few days ago, died at her relative, Iris February’s home.
Ismay was born in Barbados on December 27, 1900 to Bajan parents. Her father, Livingstone, died before she was born, but her mother Louise, lived to the ripe old age of 102. Her two brothers and two sisters are all deceased.
She married Harold Spooner, a cane-harvester in British Guiana. He is also deceased.

During an interview back in 2011, Mrs. Spooner said that she left Barbados at age 10, with her mother and uncles, for British Guiana “during the indentureship period”. “They were carrying people all about to [build] Panama [Canal]; to different places”, she said.
“Cutting cane was a hard work, a very hard work. Rain a fall and beat yuh till yuh…Oh Lord have mercy…when a rain fall, yuh shiver like a leaf on a tree,” she reminisced.
“Plenty people come with me and they go away back to Barbados.”
During the hardship, she said that some of her family members returned to Barbados but she refused since she could not handle “the running up and down”. She settled on the Corentyne where she lived until her passing.
Her only child, Elsie, died several years ago in Scotland.
“Me work hard a Backdam, cut cane and weed grass, throw manure, build punt, break brick, fetch bagasse, and that time, six cents was expensive you know ,” she said.
“You didn’t have paper money. When you had paper money, you feel you big, silver money and copper. A penny could’ve given you four things. You could’ve gone and buy ½ cent biscuit and ½ cent sugar and you get a whole set. You mad to go and call for a cent sugar now?
“So the money was small but you get the value”, she recalled.
She also performed a few domestic chores for some people on the Corentyne. “My dear, I worked like a slave. I hear people talk about work; I work at people kitchen from morning till night,” she said.
She loved to talk about her many visions during dreams in which she saw “in the clouds, a chariot coming from the East” with people who stopped and she entered, hearing, “I go take you to Heaven you know” and asked her to “look upstairs at a rainbow”.
“Me never see a house big so, a tower,” she said. She stated that she saw a man who told her to enter the tower and told her he will take her to heaven. “Me can’t describe this place how this place nice. Me kneel down on me knee and pray for mercy.”
She said that the man told her that God will pardon her and have mercy on her. Her life changed then and she became a Christian.
“If I didn’t accept that message from the Lord, I wouldn’t be here today”.
She shared more stories about visions of the heavens and transparent houses in the sky.
If she has gone to that place then she is truly happy, now. Perhaps when she drew he last breath about noon yesterday, she was seeing that “place” she always saw.
She loved to eat hassar and gillbacker but stopped shortly after becoming a Seventh – Day Adventist a few years ago.
She recalled that she had “seven accidents”. She fell a few times and on one occasion when some boys who were playing with an iron roller upstairs, she got hit on the face since she was standing below.
Ms. Iris February started to take care of her in 2002, after she saw Mrs. Spooner was living alone in an unsafe home. February said that she enjoyed caring for old people. She once took care of other old people in Georgetown.
February told this newspaper that Mrs. Spooner had some relatives on the Corentyne, but they did not really visit. She added that Mrs. Spooner did not receive NIS pension, but received old age pension and $720 per week from the Sugar Estate.
“She drank a lot of porridge and [ate] provision and so”, she said.
Asked about the secret to her longevity, Mrs. Spooner had stated, “I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you that. God knows”.
She said she had asked God a few times before to take her away since she was struggling with some pains (from her accidents), saying, “Father, what me a do here. Put me to my rest”, but He told her, “When I am ready, I will put you to rest. I am your doctor.”
Mrs. Spooner lost her sight a long time ago but was still a talkative, jovial old lady full of stories and songs to give praise to her God.
Fulfilling her long dream to have a radio to listen to church programmes and preaching, the New Jersey Arya Samaj Humanitarian Mission, in 2011, donated a transistor radio and other items to Mrs. Spooner.
Pandit Suresh Sugrim was one of the persons who visited Mrs. Spooner on an annual basis, taking love and material goodies for her. He was saddened at her death.
“I extend my deepest sympathies and am very sad…With the years of visiting her and maintaining her, it’s unfortunate— whatever she wanted, I always tried to meet her expectations… may her soul rest in peace”.

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