Howard Campbell, Gleaner Writer
Samuel Fitz-Henley kisses his wife Olive during their 50th wedding anniversary dinner at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in August 2003. - CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS
WHEN SAMUEL Fitz-Henley was informed two weeks ago that he would be honoured by Government in October with the Order of Distinction, he says he took the news in stride.
"Because I have got so many awards from the United States, England and Australia, I felt Jamaica was catching up - recognising what I was doing. But, you know, I appreciate it," said the 75-year-old Mr. Fitz-Henley last week.
Just as appreciable of the recognition is Sonia Mohan, who attended the Fitz-Henley Secretarial Institute in Kingston during the 1980s.
"That's where I was taught and the training was good. Much of what I learnt as a secretary was at Fitz-Henley's," she said.
Ms. Mohan is just one of thousands of Jamaicans who got training in shorthand, typing and secretarial duties from either Samuel Fitz-Henley, his father or his brother.
RETAINS EXUBERANCE
It has been nearly 10 years since Mr. Fitz-Henley taught in a classroom, and he is no longer as prolific on the keyboards due to hip complications that have confined him for the past year to a wheelchair. But his mind is still sharp and he retains much of the exuberance he showed in his prodigious youth.
Samuel Fitz-Henley is the last practising link to a family that put shorthand writing and stenography on the map in Jamaica. His father, Randolph Fitz-Henley, was a self-taught dynamo who passed on his skills to eight of his nine children. The 'old man' also taught shorthand and secretarial detail to hundreds of Jamaicans, opening the Fitz-Henley College in 1920.
Randolph Fitz-Henley, who died 16 years ago, lived to see three of his sons work as stenographers in the Supreme Court. He also saw Sam and his wife, Olive, operate three Fitz-Henley Secretarial Institutes in Kingston, St. Catherine and Ocho Rios.
Handel, Sam's younger brother, died two years ago and the school he ran at Cargill Avenue closed soon after. It was the last secretarial institution that bore the Fitz-Henley name, as Sam and Olive were forced to shut down their schools in the late 1990s because operating them had become too costly.
The younger generation of Fitz-Henleys were never big on carrying on the family legacy, something Sam says is a bit disappointing. But he is also aware that times have changed.
IT DOESN'T PAY!
"My (four) children never showed an interest in it ... It's a rewarding thing if you look at it from a philosophical standpoint but it doesn't pay!" he exclaimed with a chuckle. "Shorthand is not being used to the extent by secretaries as it used to be and there is more emphasis on the computer."
For most of the 20th Century, there was plenty of emphasis on shorthand and Randolph Fitz-Henley was one of its leading exponents; he was particularly adept at the Pitman system, one of the most established of shorthand techniques. With work often taking him away from Jamaica, the senior Fitz-Henley's first four children were born in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Sam, the third, was most skilled at typing and shorthand. He started learning Pitman at age four and by the time he was six, was writing 102 words per minute; two years later, he sat the Pitman Advance Theory Examination, completing it in less than quarter of the time allotted.
As early as age 13, Sam Fitz-Henley was teaching shorthand and typing to adults at the Fitz-Henley College. At 19, he substituted for his father as official stenographer at the Appeals Court. He spent 20 years as a stenographer at the Supreme Court, retiring in 1969.
These days, Sam Fitz-Henley is unable to function as he did in former years because of his hip impediment. He still does depositions but is no longer able to perform duties as pastor at the Philadelphia Assembly Hall in Greenwich Town, a post he has held for the last 30 years.
He says he misses the adrenalin rush from working and teaching.
"I can't go fast as I used to but I do miss it. What else can I say? It's been my life."
