Winston Sill/ Freelance Photographer
Great-grandsons, Phillip and Josh, with mother, Judith and Mrs. Gladys Tomlinson.Avia Ustanny, Freelance Writer
GLADYS TOMLINSON was born on July 27, 1902. If you do the math, you will understand why her family in Mona was in a celebratory mood last month. When the day came around, the family threw a large party in celebration of her 100th. It was a milestone for the entire family.
Today we interview her at home where she sits pretty in pink. Grandma Gladys speaks with a peremptory tone - one indication of the inner strength which has helped her to endure for a century.
Gladys Tomlinson, born Gladys Ridley, came into the world five years after Kingston was destroyed by an earthquake. She is the daughter of a teacher and home maker (he a graduate of Mico, she a brown-skinned beauty from Westmoreland).
Her childhood in Hanover was idyllic. Gladys told us, "I learned to ride a horse and I would gallop up and down the place." At age nine, her father took her to Welcome to sit the all-island examination which she passed. At age 12, she was sent to Montego Bay to attend Beckford and Smith's. She was bright and did rather well in school.
Disaster struck at age 14, however, when her father who was only in his forties, died. Although she passed her Junior Cambridge examinations with several distinctions, that was the end of her schooling for a while. What followed was a return to Westmoreland to her mother's home where the widow decided to settle with her family.
Gladys left home after a few years and headed for Port Antonio where she found employment in the post office doing telegraphy. These years were spent receiving love letters from suitors and such pleasurable excursions as boat trips to Navy Island. She eventually got married at age 21 to Percy Tomlinson, a clerk at Kirkwood and Company in Savanna-la-Mar, who she met when she returned to that parish to work in the post office. The couple settled down in Smithfield to live.
On getting married, Gladys lost her job, for it was a rule that married women could not be employed in the service. But, she was recalled, along with four other married ladies, during World War II to do telegraphy chiefly at nights.
Work was fine, but Gladys remembers the most troublesome time in her life as the period when both her mother and an aunt died and her son fell ill with multiple sclerosis. She came to Kingston to live for a period, convinced that he was about to die also.
He did not and she used the opportunity to do a course in domestic science. On her return to Westmoreland, she was set on going to Mannings, where had already been offered a teaching post pending training.
But, she was snapped up by Cornwall College instead, where she spent twenty-five years in charge of student boarding. She recalls fondly Principal Barrett, a great stickler for discipline at the all-male institution. She saw four principals go and come in the period.
On retirement from Cornwall College, Gladys returned to live full time with her husband, with whom she raised cows, planted vegetables and tended a garden which was the envy of all around.
Her seven children, most of whom attended Mannings School, were all hard workers in school. She remembers that sending them off to get higher education was a process of "plotting and plotting". The first, a daughter, secured a doctorate and then got married to an Ethiopian; the second (Fay Tomlinson, wife of the headmaster of Jamaica College) did haematology; the third worked as an auditor with the government service; and the fourth did agriculture (cow farming). Her eldest son is a CPA who works in Ohio in the United States. Two children have died.
"I miss those who have gone. We were very close. I still have some lovely grandchildren," she says. There are 15 grandchildren in all who have also given her 11 great-grandchildren.
Gladys, an expert seamstress, boasts that she made the wedding dresses for all her daughters. She may not be able to do the same today for her granddaughters, but she is there for them in other ways. She remains a strong woman, physically and mentally. Only her eye sight is bad.
"I am still here walking up and down and attending church," she says.
She maintains her independence, living in her own flat assisted by a helper who does the dusting, cleaning, cooking and reads the Bible. "Mauva is a good companion," she states.
She continues to enjoy her music, playing the piano and pipe organ. "The only problem is my sight. But, if He (God) took it what am I do? I will have to say like Paul - 'His grace is sufficient for me'."
Recalling the 100 years of history, she is surrounded by several generations in her own flat, recently redecorated by her granddaughters as a pre-birthday gift. Everyone, though they must have heard the story before, are entertained by the retelling.
