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President Granger visits centenarian as 105th birthday approaches
Mrs. Olive Blackmore, one of the oldest persons in Guyana, yesterday morning received a visit from President David Granger at her Cummings Street home.
President Granger joins in prayer with centenarian Mrs. Olive Blackmore.
Mrs. Blackmore affectionately called Aunt Olive and “Granny” by her relatives will be celebrating her 105th birthday on May 23, three days before Guyana’s Golden Jubilee.
It was a special event occasioned by President Granger’s departure for the United Nations and subsequent hectic schedule leading up to and during the jubilee celebrations.
Mrs. Blackmore’s youngest child, Mr Mervin Blackmore, reflected that if his mother still had her faculties she would have been excited about the President’s visit and “in her usual manner would have offered you and your party cake and drink.”
President Granger stated, “I’m very happy and honoured to be here. There are so many similarities between her and my own mother. My mother was born in Charlestown and she had eight children. I’m number seven. Had my mother been alive today she would have been 111.”
“I just hope that Mrs. Blackmore could live comfortably for the rest of her days and be happy, and that her health holds up. It’s good to be here on behalf of the government of Guyana to honour a citizen who was born when people didn’t even have watches, radios or even telephones.
“Sometimes in the village there were no phones. People would have to go somewhere to get a trunk call or send a cablegram. Many people living today don’t know what Guyana was like in those days.
“That’s why we have these clocks at Stabroek and Bourda (Markets) because people didn’t have watches. They had to depend on public clocks to know the time. Now that we have watches people are always late.”
“It’s good to be here, to share these precious moments with one of our senior citizens and to convey our best wishes to her and her family who have sustained her in a home where she can rely on the friendship and comradeship, solidarity and fellowship of the church and her relatives. I’m glad to be here.”
Members of the Roman Catholic Church including Monsignor Terrence Montrose were present to conduct a service for Mrs Blackmore that coincided with the President’s visit.
Mrs Olive Blackmore was born in Howes Street, Charlestown. She worked at a clothing factory in her late teens and upon marrying became a housewife. She is a mother of ten.
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