IN JAMAICA (A GOOD STORY): Mother of 16, BEATRICE Nelson Byfield now 106, watches TV for hours despite lack of hearing....Her eldest living child is now 81 years old.....Today she has approximately 44 grandchildren and an uncountable amount of great grandchildren

BY DONNA HUSSEY-WHYTE Sunday Observer staff reporter husseyd@jamaicaobserver.com  Sunday, April 06, 2014 
BEATRICE Nelson Byfield sat smiling on her verandah. Her small frame defied the fact that she had given birth to 16 children, including one set of triplets.
But with the exception of her pleasant demeanour, the only words spoken by the 106-year-old as she held out her hand in greeting, was "mine you bruk mi hand", followed by an even broader smile.
Centenarian Beatrice Byfield is surrounded
by some of her grandchildren, (left to right)
Jacqueline Byfield, Michael Lewis, Carmen
 Campbell and Yvonne Clarke.
(PHOTOS: GARFIELD ROBINSON)
This, the Jamaica Observer team soon learnt has become one of her favourite statements after she fell and broke her leg in 2007, just before her 100th birthday, and her arm two months later. This landed her in the hospital for five weeks, her first stay at the institution in 100 years.
"Now she is very afraid of hospital," the centenarian's son, 64-year-old Franklin 'Mass Joe' Byfield stated.
"These are people who were never sick. They might go doctor with any little minor things but they never sick. So when she went to the St Ann's Bay Hospital she was there for three weeks with the broken leg and she wanted to come home, so she got confused and restless," he said.
"They sent her from Bay to Kingston and she did another two weeks there. Two months after she pin the leg and came out of the hospital, she was sitting down on the verandah and a little baby was about to fall and she reached to grab the baby, lost her balance and broke her hand. So now she afraid of breaks.
"If you hold her hand to shake it, she will laugh and tell you to mind you break her hand, or that she going to break your hand. But both her arms and her leg are okay now," Franklin added. more

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