By DONNA HUSSEY-WHYTE Sunday Observer Staff reporter husseyd@jamaicaoserver.com Sunday, March 30, 2014
She is loved and fondly spoken of by her children.
But one thing is foremost on the top of the list when describing the cheerful Christiana Elizabeth Rose, who turned 101 on March 24, is that she was strict and loved to beat.
"Lawd Jesus she loved to beat!" Catherine Rose, postmistress at the Spanish Town Post Office and one of Rose's 10 remaining children said when asked about her mother.
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| Christiana Rose, 101, is surrounded by a number of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren last Friday. |
"She love beat! She love beat! And you couldn't outrun her! When she say she want to beat you, you better run. And if you run she going to catch you. She could run!" the centenarian's daughter recalled with a broad smile.
"She was very disciplined. She grew us really good. She said that one person came to court her daughter and when she asked why he didn't look elsewhere, he said because he heard she grew the best children," she said.
The postmistress described her mother as a blessed and God-fearing woman for as long as she can remember.
"She had been going to her church until when she finally couldn't go, but she still praise her God and she encourages people along the way," she said.
"She took very good care of us. And she could cook! She never used seasoning so she used to say is like her hand has in seasoning because whatever she had, she cooked it and it tasted real good. And she always liked to share with neighbours and friends," the youngest of the siblings said.
Her sentiments were echoed by some of her brothers.
"She was a nice mother, strict, but I mean she would never eat and don't give anybody none," the centenarian's 66-year-old son Joseph said.
"In those days when we were growing up, we couldn't think 'bout carrying girls to the house. We couldn't think 'bout that. And we couldn't go road," he recalled. "When the big brothers going show (movie), man, they had to beg her to let me go, mi couldn't come out of the yard. All when mi big, mi couldn't go road like youths now. When you looking a little girlfriend a pure hiding, man. A mussa when mi reach 'bout 21 mi start get girl," he laughed.
But despite her strict nature, Rose's 56-year-old son, James, described her as the best mother anyone could ever have, especially since her strictness was for their own good.
"She took care of us and every other woman's children in the community," James said.
A laughing Rose agreed that she was in fact strict and that if they did anything wrong she would 'cut their skin'.
"They grew up under rule. But them father stricter than me," she said. "My children don't grow up at dance. And they don't keep company with others who never good. If you a woman and you nuh live nuh life, don't come a mi yard because my husband would run you. And if you don't grow up you pickney dem good, you can't come," she said.
Rose admitted to growing 15 great grandchildren and one great, great grandchild along with her 12 children, two of whom are now deceased. She said however, that they never argued with each other.
"We just sit down and counsel them. If you counsel your children they will behave good," she told the Jamaica Observer from her Kellits, Clarendon home on Friday.
She said that if her children went out, even when they were adults and were told that they could not come in after a particular time, which was set at 9 o'clock, they had to sleep outside, as the door would not be opened.
So strict was her mode of discipline that it was transferred to her children. more
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