Sunday, December 21, 2014
BE good to people, especially children. That, Louise Johnson said, is her formula for long life.
"People would ask me to help them look after their children. I even remember a lady coming to me with a young baby and said, 'Here, he is yours.' I raised him until he became an adult," Johnson, affectionately called Miss Ina recounted.
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| Louise Johnson, 100, along with some of her guests at her 100th birthday celebration recently |
Born on August 16, 1914 in the peanut-farming community of Brinkley, St Elizabeth, Johnson devoted her entire life to looking out for the interest of others. She has a soft spot in her heart and could not resist looking after the children in her community, along with her two biological daughters.
However, she explained that many of the numerous children she cared for do not keep in touch with her, something that evidently disturbs her.
"I did not have a happy childhood," she disclosed. "I was one of eight children for my parents, but I grew up with my godparents from when I was 10 years old. They didn't send me to school; therefore, I had to stay home every day and do domestic work."
Not wanting a similar fate for her daughters, Johnson, a single parent, worked hard to send her children to school so that they could get what she didn't receive.
"I couldn't put up with the foolishness of the children's fathers so I had to work hard to take care of my children myself," the no-nonsense mother pointed out. "I did domestic work, buy and sell and farmed. I planted corn, gungo, banana, callaloo, sorrel and made bammy to sell. I would walk from Brinkley to Mandeville market two times for the week to take things there to sell, and to buy potato and tobacco to come back to resell in my community," she said, adding that the journey would take about four hours. more
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