By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., December 7, 2022 — My first cousin Norma Elliott, who lives in New York, called me this morning with the extremely sad news that our first cousin Alphonso “Boogaloo” Elliott has died. Boogaloo and I grew up like brothers with our grandparents Ben and Mabel Elliott at Staniard Creek, Andros, from we were literally both babies.
Boogaloo was the eldest son of my late uncle Audley Elliott, one of my mother Violet Elliott Brown’s younger brothers, who was as much a father to me as my natural father, Samuel Brown. Like many young men in The Bahamas in the late 1940s and 1950s, Uncle Audley went on “The Contract” several times, and I can vividly recall the joy and jubilation among the seven grandchildren who grew up with Papa and Mama at Staniard Creek whenever Uncle Audley returned from one of his stints on The Contract.
Uncle Audley habitually bought several outfits of clothes for all the grandchildren – beautiful dresses for the girls and shirts, pants and new tennis shoes for the boys – and we were unquestionably some of the best-dressed children at Staniard Creek whenever he returned from The Contract.
Of course, we were all devout Roman Catholics, and my male cousins – in addition to Boogaloo, the late John Elliott, son of my late uncle Israel “Lee” Elliott – and I could not wait for Sundays to come to dress up in our new clothes to attend Mass at St. Rita’s Roman Catholic Church.
Our grandfather, Benjamin Elliott, was the catechist at St. Rita’s, so we actually attended church three times on Sundays – morning Mass, Sunday school during the afternoon and evening Mass. Customarily, we did not eat before morning Mass, and it was a family tradition after Mass to sit around a long table in the kitchen — a separate building on our family compound, which also had a main house and a smaller one — and enjoy a breakfast of stewed fish, with a choice of potato bread or cassava bread.
After breakfast, my grandmother Mabel Elliott invariably used to invite each of the grandchildren to take a sip of her coffee from huge “mug” crafted from a used peaches can. Children were not served coffee because it was superstitiously thought that it gave them a “hard head” and made them stubborn.
Whenever Uncle Audley was back home from The Contract, he used to regale us during breakfast with stories about his experiences in the United States working on farms in Florida and some northern states that imported farm workers to harvest their crops.
Back then, whenever Bahamian young men returned from the contract, one of the first purchases they made was a bicycle. Under an agreement signed by the then government of The Bahamas with whatever agency in the United States was responsible for the legal importation of farm workers, a percentage of the salary paid to the workers was sent to the government to “save” for them when they returned home. So, when they did eventually return home after a two-or-three-year stint on The Contract, they had quite a sizeable “nest egg” waiting for them.
Although some of them squandered their contract savings over a period of time on having a good time, my grandfather insisted that Uncle Audley and his other two sons who spent time on the contract – uncle Lee and uncle Ashton – use their money wisely. Uncle Audley, for example, bought a piece of property in Nassau through what is now known as John Street, where in later years he built a house. No doubt, he was encouraged to buy property in Nassau by his older brother, Clarence Elliott, who had moved to Nassau years earlier.
I have told the story on more than one occasion about how Uncle Clarence, the eldest of Papa and Mama’s seven children, paved the way for the eventual move by the Elliott family to Nassau when he built a house through Paul Meeres Corner, now known as Fleming Street, prior to moving to New York to live in the late 1940s. That house is still standing opposite the now-closed Keith’s Chicken Shack that was a popular take-out, late-night restaurant in the 1950s and 1960s.
I remember that uncle Audley bought a new Raleigh bicycle on one of his trips back home, and if my memory serves me correctly that’s how I learned to ride a bicycle. On one of those trips back home, he also met a young lady in Mastic Point, the late Corine Newton, who was Boogaloo’s mother, and when Boogaloo was around one-year old she brought him to Staniard Creek to live with Papa and Mama. Boogaloo was born on January 31, 1942, and my birthday is March 7, 1942, so I was around nine months old when he was placed in the care of Papa and Mama, according to family folklore.
On one of his trips back from the Contract, Uncle Audley met and married a lovely young lady, Edith Woodside, whose family lived very near to St. Rita’s Roman Catholic Church on the East Ridge of Staniard Creek, and that marital union produced my cousins Bruce, George, Verona, Lorna, Norbert, Jerome, Martin and Nicola.
As an adult living in Nassau, Boogaloo became a very wealthy man. The early foundation for his wealth was established when he owned a stable of horses that were very successful competing in regular races at Hobby Horse Hall Race Track in the 1960s and 1970s. Actually, one of his most productive winning horses was named “Boogaloo” because he was often heard shouting from the upper deck where he usually sat to watch the races, “Let’s go Boogaloo, Let’s go Boogaloo”, whenever Boogaloo was leading a race.
He was also an astute businessman and by the time Hobby Hall closed in 1977, he was involved in several business ventures and owned extensive property. Over the years, he also became actively involved in Bahamian politics after he developed a close friendship with former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham and was a strong financial supporter of Mr. Ingraham after he was expelled from the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) in 1986 and subsequently became leader of the Free National Movement (FNM) in 1990.
Indeed, the building on Mackey Street that still is the headquarters of FNM was owned by Boogaloo and he allowed them to use free of charge leading up to the 1992 general election, which was won by the FNM and Ingraham became Prime Minister.
The last time I say Boogaloo was during my visit to Nassau for the funeral my late Aunt Maria Elliott Forbes, Mama and Papa’s youngest child, on Saturday, September 7, 2019 at Our Lady of the Holy Souls Roman Catholic Church on Deveaux Street. Boogaloo did to attend the funeral service because he was suffering from an advanced case of Alzheimer’s, but he did participate in the repast and we had a sort or “good reunion.”
May the soul of my beloved first cousin Alphonso “Boogaloo” Elliott rest in peace.
