Evelyn “Granny” Walcott died last week leaving behind a legacy of entrepreneurship and achievement.
Hers is a story of determination, seizing opportunities and ploughing through any obstacles in her way.
Her business acumen took her from the kitchens of others, to her own kitchen, cooking for an extensive Barbadian and international clientele for whom there was no other place like Granny’s.
That she succeeded in making the Oistins, Christ Church restaurant a household name in Barbados and a place sought out by hundreds of visitors to the island over decades of its operation, is an accomplishment that will stand.
The culinary skills that enabled her to convert simple chicken necks, gizzards and livers into a delectable snack that often caused long lines to form at the Christ Church restaurant day and night, have not died with the 96-year-old.
She made a point of teaching her “girls” in the restaurant how to do what she did so well and even when advancing age forced her to remain at her Maxwell Coast Road home, it is there they went to continue to learn.
Up to one year ago, she was still vetting every dish, tasting and checking before giving her approval to everything going out from the restaurant-styled kitchen she built at her home.
The last of 13 children, born in humble circumstances at Welches, near Oistins, Walcott started school at age five, at Memorial Girls School located on the site of what is now Christ Church Foundation School. She later attended Water Street Primary.
Early on, she worked as a cook in one Barbadian home and later managed a small guest house. She used to credit Major Lewis, a captain of the then Barbados Division of the Salvation Army, for setting her on a growth path as it was in his household that she learnt to bake and honed her housekeeping skills.
Walcott’s eldest son Rudy is feeling his mother’s passing “to the core”. Throughout her business life he was her most trusted ally. In 1979, together they purchased the fishing boat “Hot Pants” and started selling fish across the island.
He told the Sunday Sun: “She had a little car. She never drove, so I would take her. We also used to sell the fish in Oistins. I would come from work in my shirt-jac and go and help her sell”. He would often join his mother selling the day’s catch at the Oistins Fish Market.
It was no coincidence that Rudy attended Christ Church Boys Foundation School where generations of students benefited from the generosity of “Granny Walcott.” As holder of the canteen concession at the school she endeared herself to the students with her kindness. Her pear cutters and hamburgers remain a fond memory for many men who attended the Christ Church School. Graduating students looked forward to the grand feast to which she treated them every year, free of charge.
Through her daily pursuit for fish sales she became acquainted with a businessman who sold hot lunches in a small snackette in Oistins. The cooking advice she offered him, gained her this restaurateur’s respect, making her his first choice when he was looking for someone to buy over the business.
Granny’s pioneering spirit and her reputation as a cook has reached the four corners of the earth and she entertained visitors in her tastefully decorated home, all of them eager to meet the Barbadian restaurateur.
The perfect host, her doors were always open in welcome, and it was customary for alumni of the Christ Church Boys’ and Girls’ Foundation Schools to drop in regularly. Many of them regaled her for her kindness during their school days. But as her son said, this was the nature of his mother. “One of the things I will always remember her for is her kindness. Her kindness was overpowering.”
“Any little boy she saw doing something, she would give them all the advice. She loved that.”
She also loved auctions, a pastime which made hers a familiar face to auctioneers across the island, and a hobby which was largely responsible for her becoming a property owner over and over again.
“With Granny’s it was not about the money. Gran loved cooking” Rudy said. But it is her love for people and her generous heart that are expected to draw a large turnout of mourners to her funeral service at the Christ Church Parish Church on Wednesday.
gercinecarter@nationnews.com