Duanvale anxiously awaiting Aunt V monument

WESTERN BUREAU:

Residents of Duanvale in Trelawny are pleased with news that a bust of Violet ‘Aunt V’ Moss-Brown is to be erected in the community she brought much celebration to in 2017 when she became the world’s oldest person at 117 years and 189 days.

The monument was promised by Culture Minister Olivia Grange when she attended the funeral in the wake of a dispute over a decision to donate the supercentenarian’s body to The University of the West Indies for scientific purposes instead of burying her beside her husband in the community cemetery.

However, with time slipping by and hearing no concrete words about the promised monument, residents regularly voiced their displeasure in the media and at the local municipal level, claiming that they were tricked in allowing Moss-Brown’s body to be taken away, as at the time, they were planning to protest the decision.

Over the weekend, Grange announced that the life-size bust is being commissioned to be ready by the September anniversary of her death.

Harriff Allison, a former pastor at the Trittonville Baptist Church in the community, where Moss-Brown was baptised when she was 13 years old and subsequently went on to serve as organist and choir director for several years, said he was overjoyed by the news.

“She was an icon in the community and a person of faith. She deserves nothing less. It will make the memory of her long-lasting,” said Allison.

‘Too many promises’

Joy Leach, who was a frequent companion of Moss-Brown over several years, was also pleased, but took the news with a grain of salt.

“I will be very happy for her, Aunt V, and Duanvale. However, I am not holding my breath,” said Leach. “There have been too many promises. If and when it comes, I will celebrate.”

Falmouth Mayor Collen Gager said that in addition to the monument, Palmer’s Crescent, the road on which Moss-Brown’s home is located, will be renamed in her honour.

After she was officially designated the world’s oldest person by the Guinness Book of Records, Moss-Brown became an instant celebrity. In the space of months, she was visited by Governor General Sir Patrick Allen, Prime Minister Andrew Holness, and then Leader of the Opposition Dr Peter Phillips.

Her final days were somewhat controversial as her son, Barrington Russell, who lives overseas, made arrangements to have her moved from her Duanvale home to a nursing home in Montego Bay without the knowledge of her local relatives. She died within days of being moved, and according to one relative, “she died of a broken heart”.

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