Manchester centenarian looks to another milestone

On February 12, Millicent Smith will celebrate her 103rd birthday but she told her family that she doesn't want a fancy party, so as not to 'attract her ancestors'.

"I just want a little get-together and no big TV station and dem tings deh because what dem don't know is that after dem party and gone, the ancestors will come for me. A lot of times yuh see people on TV and couple weeks after dem dead - is the ancestors get call, eno," she said.

Born in Maine, St Elizabeth, in 1923, Smith was taken in by strangers at age six following her mother's death. Not given the opportunity to get a formal education, Smith said she began toiling at an early age.

"I went to live in Manchester and all I did was work, but after mi grow up, it pay off because mi manage to work and buy mi own home. I did all type of work. I grow my children good and teach dem to read and write and I work and save and that was what I teach my children. Don't depend on any man and always have your own because man can be deceiving," Smith said.

At age 23, she gave birth to her first of eight children (five of whom have since passed) for her late husband Adolphus Lewis. She said her marriage was not the smoothest but she obeyed her wedding vows and remained with Lewis until his death a little more than 40 years ago.

"Him didn't beat mi but him was very mean. Him would give me market money but nothing more but I was always working and saving so it didn't matter. I stayed with him and took care of him because I live by the Bible," she said.

The elderly woman said that although she was able to work and provide a meaningful life for her family, she wanted to gain some amount of literacy, so she sought intervention at the Jamaica Foundation for Lifelong Learning, after a representative came to her workplace.

"I learn how to sign my name and pick up [things] where I can, so now that I am old, I would never see my name on bulla cake and eat," she said.

Smith can no longer walk independently, but boasts an intact memory and is in fairly good health otherwise. The centenarian told THE STAR that she keeps up to date on current affairs and is often taken back by the lack of discipline often portrayed in today's society.

"We didn't know what crime was because discipline was the order of the day when we a children. If yuh parents ever beat yuh and yuh run go your neighbour yard, the neighbour going to beat yuh and send you back. If neighbour see you a misbehave a road, dem could spank you but nobody can't try that now," she said.

Reflecting on her life, the elderly woman, who got baptised five years ago, said she is confident that she will be sitting at the right hand of the Almighty's throne when her time is up.

"I have a good relationship with God and I make my way straight with Him. I asked Him for long life and He gave it to me. For now mi just a continue to eat good food. I eat lots of gungo and I don't eat rice or flour. [I eat] lots of yam and potato and fish as well. I have countless grand[children] and great[grandchildren] and great-great grandchildren," she said.