FUNERAL?DIRECTORS paid final respects to one of their own yesterday, bearing the body of late St Lucy funeral director Sylvan “Sellie” Griffith into St. Lucy Parish Church for a second service before his burial in the church yard.
Seventy-one-year-old Griffith was founder and director of Griffith’s Funeral Home at Fustic Village.
His reputation across the northern parishes was reflected in the numbers who turned out for an early service at the Checker Hall Seventh Day Adventist Church conducted by Pastor Sheldon Brome, and again at the St. Lucy Anglican church where his nephew Wismar Greaves paid tribute at the service conduicted by the Reverend Curtis Goodridge.
His son Dr. Andrew Griffith shared with both congregations, stories about the life of a father whom he said left Coleridge Parry School prematurely to follow his passion for agriculture, but finding that work “too hard”, tried his hand at policing in the Royal Barbados Police Force, at life insurance sales and later at the mortician business of which he made a success until his death.
“My dad was a giver, he would give you the shirt off his back…my dad’s life was mainly about success, being successful,” Grifffith said, noting that while his father associated success with making a profit in the early years of building the business, in later life he was persuaded that success was about family and he focussed on family responsibility and building a successful family.
Mourning their loss are Griffifth’s three children Commander Sandra Griffith, Major Philip Griffith, retired from the United States (US) Air Force and Dr. Andrew Griffith of the U.S. Department of Veterans Administration.
