Footprints: Sybel Baugh - Strong, determined woman moves on

Sybel Etheline Baugh was born on February 7, 1925 in Parnasus, May Pen, Clarendon.

Marie Etheline and Isaiah Berthram were her parents, and her siblings include Leslie, Louis, Joyce, Edith, Helen, Tobyn, Richard (Dick), Peggy and Hugh.

Sybel, who attended St Andrew High School for Girls, married Samuel Baugh in 1946.

The marriage produced three children - Robert, Elizabeth (Liz) and Marie Whitbread.

The Baughs encouraged their children to get as much education as possible and all three attended university.

The hard-working Baughs built their dream home at Barbican, St Andrew. But, shortly after, Isaiah was sent to the Court of St James in England, as an agricultural attache.

The family had the opportunity to attend garden parties and balls at Buckingham Palace.

Sybel, an Anglican who attended Lyndhurst Methodist Church with her husband, was an insurance administrator and personal assistant to lawyers and was the chief chemist at Beecham?s when she lived in London with her daughter after the death of her husband in 1971.

Both Robert and Elizabeth also predeceased her.

While living in England, Sybel's home was open to many other Jamaicans, friends of her children, nieces and nephews, and others. She could not work, so with the then high commissioner's wife, Lady Lindo, and a number of other ladies, started the Lignum Vitae Club to raise funds to support charitable causes both in London and Jamaica.

This club is still in existence in London.

She was a founding member of the St Andrew's Old Girls Association (UK Chapter).

February 7 would have been Sybel's 91st birthday, but she died on Saturday, January 16, in St Andrew.

"She will be remembered as a strong, determined woman who achieved a great deal in her lifetime. She will be missed by her family and many friends especially Charles Davidson who supported her throughout her illness," her son-in-law, Leslie Whitbread, told Footprints.

Paul Williams