Bellas Gate-born centenarian powered by ‘good lifestyle practices’

When The Gleaner on September 14, 2022 published an article titled, ‘There’s gold in them hills’, referencing the Canadian miners finding traces of gold and copper in their first drill hole in Bellas Gate, St Catherine, little did they know that a centenarian treasure also came from the deep of those hills.

Isola Mamby, who was born in Bellas Gate on March 15, 1917, celebrated her 107th birthday a few days ago, on a date also referenced as the Ides of March 2024.

Mamby’s daughter, Dr Jennifer Mamby-Alexander, says her mother feels her longevity is due to good lifestyle practices. These include eating organically home grown foods and fruits for decades. Among those which have become a staple in her life are soursop, jackfruit, cherries, lemons, yam, ginger, pomegranate, guava, and mangoes. Dr Mamby-Alexander said her mother often wished she could “eat fish every day.”

According to her, up to age 103-years old, the sprightly senior exercised daily, and regularly walked up to Mountain Spring road. She “even survived the COVID-19 infection at age 104 and without the vaccine.” Miss Isola received her spiritual growth and nurturing in the Seventh Day Adventist Church at Bellas Gate.

She is one of eight children for parents Shedwell and Henrietta Lindo and from an early age learnt to eat what was grown on the farm they lived. According to her, the family owned a farm in the community and was fed with locally grown provisions, and goat’s milk.

She moved to Kingston in early adulthood and became a registered nurse after training at Kingston Public, and Jubilee Hospitals. She loved midwifery, and being an operating theatre nurse. She travelled widely and also worked as a nurse in the USA.

BROKE HER LEG

Isola married Edward Milton Mamby who pre deceased her and children Deryck and Jennifer. She says one of her fiercest battles in adulthood has been with the Jamaica Public Service (JPS). Mamby-Alexander said in 1962 her parents were proud to be first owners/occupants of a house in Hope Pastures. It was the first Jamaican residential community with government designed and Parliamentary-approved underground telephone and light services.

She said, they struggled, but paid both utility companies for the installation of those services.

However, the community and JPS became embroiled in a legal battle for electricity to remain underground as it added to the aesthetic of the area and was why they were attracted to the area in the first place.

The area was used for tree planting, and the community still has matured fruit trees and once flourished with mangoes, avocados, ackee, guava, cherry and breadfruit.

Many properties have been lost to apartment complexes and had several trees destroyed in the process. The residents lost the battle in the Supreme Court but some still have plans to appeal. Miss Isola’s household which she shares with her daughter, and several others was without electricity for long periods when they were disconnected from the underground grid. The residents were told to comply with the new system which would see the area served by a system linked via poles.

“She fell in the dark one night at home and broke her leg after JPS deliberately disconnected power from the now under-maintained power service that she paid for, claiming it was a power failure beyond repair, while 75 per cent of Hope Pastures houses are supplied by that still working underground power supply...” Dr Mamby-Alexander told The Gleaner.

Mamby says however, that “JPS has not heard the last from her.”

She says her mother “now feels old and often cries because she is wheelchair restricted.”

“She often wonders and asks about the purpose of being alive at this age, but until that answer unfolds, she is fully supported by her family and friends as she represents the golden sweet spot from the Bellas Gate,” she told The Gleaner.

erica.virtue@gleanerjm.com