By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 9, 2019 — My cousin Patricia Elliott Horsford sent me two photographs that really uplifted my spirits, although the fact that I had just viewed Lenny Kravitz’s Bahamas tourism promotional advertisement deserves some of the credit for the “upbeat” mood I am currently in.
Lenny Kravitz’s video is my “mental medication” whenever I am “feeling down” because it vividly reminds me of what life was like growing up on the island of my birth, Andros , the largest of the Islands of The Bahamas. Reminiscing on my boyhood years growing up in the idyllic settlement of Stanyard Creek — known back then as “the Garden of Andros”, with a tranquil creek separating its east and west ridges — removes the clouds of encroaching depression and gloom that nowadays occasionally invade my mind.
This morning, this was particularly true with regard to the photos I received from Patricia. They are pictures of my Aunt Maria Elliott Forbes, who has been back in Nassau for several months living with my cousin Leonardette Ross King after living in Brooklyn, New York, for a several years with my cousin Norma Elliott, Patricia’s sister, who grew up in Nassau with Aunt Maria.
In one of the photos, Aunt Maria is pictured with two of my cousins, Dr. Marcella Elliott-Ferguson and Jerome Elliott, and in the other photo she is pictured with Marcella, Jerome, Leonardette and Norma, who was visiting Nassau.
Patricia informs me that Aunt Maria will “coming back (to New York) with Norma next month after we attend Devereaux (Peetie’s) graduation from Seminary.”
Devereaux King is the son of my cousin Leonardette and her husband Danny King, who lives in Cat Island. He graduated from the College of The Bahamas several years ago with a degree in culinary arts and is an excellent chef, but several years ago – as a devout Roman Catholic, as is the case with most members of our family — he made the commitment to become a priest and entered Saint John Vianney College Seminary in Miami, Florida, from where he will graduate next month.
I have written on more than one occasion about how closely knit we are as a family. Leonardette is the daughter of my late cousin Sylvia Elliott Ross, whose father was Clarence Elliott Sr., the eldest of Ben and Mabel Elliott’s eight children. Uncle Clarence moved from Stanyard Creek, Andros, as a young man to work in Nassau and he built a house through Paul Meeres Corner, now known as Fleming Street, which became the Elliott family homestead when members of the family relocated to Nassau. It still exists as a rental unit opposite what used to be Keith’s Chicken in the Bag take-out restaurant.
Uncle Clarence subsequently moved to New York —I think at some point during the 1940s – where Patricia, Norma and four other siblings were born: Clarence, Jr., Sandra, Mabel and Alfred. Both Clarence Jr. and Sandra are now deceased.
Norma and Alfred were brought up in Nassau by Aunt Maria, and Clarence, Jr., Sandra, Patricia and Mabel attended high school in Miami while living with my late Aunt Amanda Elliott Fox and her husband Lawrence Fox.
Leonardette’s mother Sylvia Elliott Ross was the eldest of the seven grandchildren who grew up with Papa and Mama, Ben and Mabel Elliott, at Stanyard Creek, but I grew up calling her Aunt Sylvia because she and Aunt Maria were around the same age and enforced discipline as stringently as Papa did.
Aunt Maria and “Aunt” Sylvia spent all of their working years as teachers, and when they both retired, every year they went on a cruise. After they had seen virtually all of the islands of the Caribbean, for a couple years they took cruises to Mediterranean destinations, and I still have a t-shirt from Greece that Aunt Maria brought back for me one year.
When Aunt Maria’s health started to deteriorate, she moved in with Aunt Sylvia, through Murphyville in Palmdale, where Leonardette , who was then teaching in Nassau, was able to assist in taking care of both Aunt Maria and her mother, “Aunt” Sylvia.
When “Aunt” Sylvia died several years ago, Norma, who still calls Aunt Maria “Mommy”, subsequently arranged for her to live with her New York.
