TODAY IS AN EXTRA special one for Millicent Murrell – she turns 100.
But celebrations started yesterday as she was showered with hugs, kisses and congratulations from relatives and friends at a birthday luncheon at the Horatio Cooke Auditorium of the National Union of Public Workers’ headquarters.
“I thank God. Had not for Him I could not be here,” she said.
Youngest daughter Patricia Drakes said her mother had been looking forward to the party for weeks.
There will be no major celebrations today. The sisters of the Chapman Street Church of God, of which she is a member, will visit her at home to give communion.
Drakes said her mother was strict and did not have any favourites among her three children.
“If you were naughty you were naughty and if you were good you were good, and you were treated accordingly . . . . She has said so much that I keep repeating them to my children, it sounds like her over and over again.”
Murrell, who lives in Bank Hall, St Michael, was a cook for the overseers at Constant Plantation and also worked at Foster Lodge and Rowans plantations.
The matriarch is still mentally sharp and does not allow her blindness, diabetes, hearing impediment and being confined to a wheelchair stop her from participating in family activities, evidenced by joining them in singing Blessed Assurance, one of her favourite songs.
Drakes said the family is made up of mostly women. There are five granddaughters and one grandson – Magistrate Christopher Birch.
Longevity also runs in the family with one sister reaching 100 years and three months while another lived to 98. (LK)
