Footprints: Colonel Frank Lumsden - A gracious and generous uncle

After three days of celebrations in the Asafu Yard at Charles Town, Portland, a thanksgiving service was held for Frank Delano Lumsden at the Temple of Light Centre in New Kingston on September 3.

The centre is far way from where Colonel Lumsden was born in Buff Bay, Portland, on June 28, 1942, the sixth child of Cecil Ivan Lumsden and Satira Elizabeth Lumsden. He was the last of six boys - Vin, Glen, Manley, Keith, and Lance. His only sister was Hyacinth.

His nephew, Michael Lumsden, remembered him as a youngster who "enjoyed school, church, and life in the country, going to the sea, river, bird shooting, playing cricket, football, flying kite and playing gig, eating bellyfuls of fruit of every kind".

Frank and his parents moved to Kingston, where he attended the Morris Knibb Primary School and Kingston College (KC), where he represented KC at Boys' Champs in the half-mile, Sunlight Cup cricket, and tennis.

His proudest achievement at KC was being part of the victorious Manning Cup team in 1958.

In 1965, he joined Keith and Lance in the United States, where he attended Southern Illinois University (SIU) at Carbondale, Illinois, on a track scholarship. He eventually became a midfielder for the SIU, Salukis soccer team. From SIU he achieved a business management degree in 1970.

After graduating from college, Frank moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he began a career as a computer systems salesman with the Burroughs Corporation. He became a stockbroker and commodities trader, working with Shearson Lehman Bros and Oppenheimer Securities, among others.

In the 1970s, Frank ceased being a full-time stock broker and focused on art and interior designing. He returned to Jamaica in 1998 and helped to revive the Charles Town Maroon village, for which he became colonel in 2004.

Lumsden was also remembered as a "gracious, generous, patient, and humorous" person, who was a "great storyteller" who "had a dramatic style".

"He was a creative cook and managed to invent delicious meals with anything he had in the cupboard," Michael Lumsden said.

- P. H. W.

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