Like tens of millions of people across America, Irene Pilgrim was hit by lottery fever, sort of, a few days ago.
Hours before the US$400 million Powerball lottery numbers were drawn, the Bajan mother of two adult sons – MacDonald Marshall, 79, who lives in London, and Joshua Pilgrim, 59, born and raised in New York – was sitting in her sixth-floor Chelsea apartment in Manhattan thinking, among other things, about what she would do with the fifth largest fortune in lottery history.
“You know, you got to be in it to win it,” said Pilgrim, who celebrated her 100th birthday on September 2. “Should I be the lucky person with the correct numbers, I would divide the money among my two sons, my six grandchildren and my daughter-in law. I would build a house and have a nice vacation.”
It wasn’t that the articulate and mentally alert centenarian who could hear a pin drop was spending her day thinking about the game of chance. Not at all.
“I am not taken up with money but I recognize that without it, you can’t do anything, even at my age,” she explained. “When I was working I planned for my future retirement and I have done pretty well for myself. I have no complaints at all. Praise and thanks to God for giving me the health and strength to be able to live so long and to have so many loving people around me.”
Pilgrim, who was born in St Joseph in 1913 and came to the United States from Barbados in 1947, is a study in longevity. Her hands and face are almost wrinkle-free, her make-up was impeccable, and she displayed a quiet demeanour and affable personality, the hallmarks of a woman who could easily be mistaken for an 80-year-old.
She recalled major events in her life, such as her first day at St Saviour’s Primary School; the lessons she learnt from her grandmother who raised her after her parents emigrated to the United States when she was a child; the day she landed in the United States to begin a new chapter in her life; and the fact that, on arrival, bad weather forced the plane to fly to Boston instead of landing in New York. This left her mother deeply worried at the airport when her daughter didn’t appear in the terminal.
She also recalled the morning she went to work for the first time in New York, a day when a snowstorm had clogged the streets.
“On that day of the snowstorm, when I thought my mother was going to tell me to remain at home, she gave me a pair of boots and told me to get to work, snow or no snow,” she said.
The centenarian, who likes all kinds of music and enjoyed dancing but has since given it up, said coming to America was a good thing because she learnt a lot about life. She married Wilfred Pilgrim in 1953 and lived a happy life while pursuing her trade as a dressmaker.
“My husband and I grew up together in St Joseph and I would say it was a happy relationship that ended only when he died in 1993. I have had a good life.”
Pilgrim has visited Barbados three times since emigrating to the United States, the last being in 2003. She couldn’t get over the positive changes in her birthplace.
“Barbados is really very nice,” she said.
With proclamations heralding her milestone as a centenarian, a letter from Governor General Sir Elliott Belgrave, Consul General Lennox Price and other officials hanging on the walls of her apartment, Pilgrim is the epitome of cheerfulness, accepting with grace the fuss people are making over her.
“I surprised myself that I have lived to be 100 years. I don’t know what the future holds, but I leave it to God,” she said.