By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., March 31, 2019 — Dr. Trevia Hayden, a friend of mine who lives in Frederick, Maryland, posted a photo on her Facebook page with her husband, Dr. Bert Williams, that brought back some wonderful memories of the 1980s when I previously lived in Washington, D.C. for 21 years.
Bahamians may recognize Bert because he is from The Bahamas and used to be a member of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force (RBDF) before he left The Bahamas to attend Howard University, from where he subsequently received his medical degree in 1993.
Bert and I were both born and raised at Stanyard Creek, Andros. His family homestead was almost right across the creek, which separates the West and East Ridges of Stanyard Creek, from the estate of my grandparents Ben and Mabel Elliott on the West Ridge, where I spent my boyhood years until I was 10 years old.
Bert is much younger than I am, but one of his uncles, the late Wenzel Deveaux, and I were contemporaries at Stanyrd Creek All-Age School. I actually met Bert for the first time in the late 1980s when he was a student at Howard University and a very good friend of my son, Dwight Brown, who also attended Howard.
Bert was a frequent visitor to my apartment when I lived at 738 Longfellow Street, N.W., especially on Sundays, which was also true with regard to a number of other Bahamian students attending universities in the Washington, D.C. area in the 1980s.
I consider myself to be a fairly good cook, especially when it comes to Bahamian dishes, and religiously on Sundays, my apartment on Longfellow Street was the “place to be” for some Bahamian students, who could look forward to having a good Bahamian meal.
Another frequent Sunday afternoon visitor was Dr. Mitchell Lockhart, the current Director of Oral Health with the Department of Health in The Bahamas, who is a graduate of Howard’s School of Dentistry. Dr. Lockhart’s father, the late Hiram Lockhart, was one of the early Presidents of The Bahamas Baseball Association (BBA), of which I also once served as President, and we were great friends.
My Sunday afternoon gatherings was how I got to meet Bert’s wife Trevia for the first time. That’s how long they have been “seeing each other,” as the saying goes. They started dating while they were both undergraduate students at Howard and both subsequently entered Howard’s Medical School.
While Trevia went on to specialize in psychiatry, Bert’s specialties include urology. His practice is primarily located in Frederick, Maryland, but he has another office in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Even when they were hanging out at my apartment on Sunday afternoons back in the 1980s, I reached the conclusion that this was no “trifling affair.” You could tell that they were in love, and the fact that they decided to make the ultimate commitment to each other and get married did not come as a surprise to me; after all, as you can see, Trevia is not only smart, but also very beautiful, and Andros men, for the most part, recognize a good opportunity when we see it.
I am not quite sure how long they have been married, but they have a beautiful 15-year-old daughter, Rhaine Elan Williams.
Incidentially, Trevia graduated from medical school in 1994, one year after Bert, and a member of her graduation class was Dr. Wayne Frederick, the current President of Howard University, who is from Trinidad.
According to Wikipedia, after graduating from high school in Trinidad at the age of 14, Frederick took “pre-college courses at St. Mary’s College in Port of Spain” and subsequently “enrolled at Howard University in 1988, at the age of sixteen.”
“As an undergraduate student, Frederick was admitted to Howard University’s B.S./M.D. dual degree program. He completed the requirements for both degrees in six years, allowing him to earn both his Bachelor of Science and his medical degree by the age of 22,” according to Wikipedia.
