Mr. and Mrs Moore (Grace and Basil) celebrating 35 years together. - Ian Allen
LAST week Friday Grace and Basil Moore celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary with a get together at their bar at the corner of Rodney Street and Penn Street in Jones Town, Kingston.
The Moores have eight children, 26 grand children and one great grand child. They have all their children and grandchildren living with them at Penn Street. The couple, which is hip with every up-to-date slang and phrase, said that they live their lives to set an example for their children.
"I don't want to get married and then divorce. I don't want my children to think that is how life is," said Grace, 58.
The couple met in Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland, when Grace, who was 19 at the time went to visit her older sister at 35 Darling Street. "He used to live next door to my sister and he would try and talk to me," she said.
Basil, who made hats for a living, was 21 at the time. He said that he saw this pretty girl coming next door to his neighbour and wanted to get to know her. He said that he was living with a girlfriend but the petite woman captured his heart.
He said that he quickly ended the relationship with his girlfriend and pursued Grace. Eventually, they began living together and after a few years they moved to Kingston.
"From the first time I see her I wanted her for my wife," Basil said. But what gave him the extra push to marry her was a near death experience when he was on his way to the United States on the Farm Work programme.
"I was on a plane and storm hit us in the air. The plane was going down and the only thing that was on my mind was that if I died my baby mother and my children will not get anything," he said.
Basil said that as soon as he got back to Jamaica he proposed to Grace. But it wasn't going to be as easy as he thought.
"When he tell me that he wanted us to get married I told him no. I said to him that I would not be free to do what I want to do and marriage would just hold me back," Grace said.
She said after he persuaded her to marry him they 'tied the knot' in a private ceremony at a friend's house at Benbow Street in Jones Town. "It was a small wedding," Basil said: "We only had two witnesses Mr. and Mrs. Farquharson," Grace interjected.
