Former coal burner still has fire in her belly

LINSTEAD, St Catherine:

VICTORIA TATE never fulfilled her dream of becoming a teacher, but her craft still afforded her the opportunity to touch many lives. She eked out a living, primarily through tilling the soil, burning coal and producing wet sugar.

The oldest member of Cool Shade/ Mexico, a community adjoining Wakefield, approximately four miles from Linstead in St Catherine, is particularly proud of her years of burning coal kilns.

"Mi chop mi wood and make them dry, then me gather them and pack them and when mi pack them done, mi dirt them and light them, and after a few days, mi go and draw them out," the 83-year-old beamed.

But, it didn't stop there, as she journeyed to Spanish Town and Three Miles in Kingston to sell her product.

"When mi start sell coal, mi was living in Bowers Wood, where me born and grow," she recalled. "Sometimes, I use the donkey to take the coal out to Bog Walk, and then take the bus from there, and other times me use the dray to take the coal from Bowers Wood straight to Spanish Town to sell."

Tate also revelled in cultivating a variety of crops, including banana, yam, gungo, corn, potato and cassava and producing wet sugar, a trade she was taught by her late husband, Astor.

"Mi used to sell the wet sugar to bakery and other people used to come here (Cool Shade/Mexico) and buy it and me sell it in the Linstead Market by the quart." She recounted that up the 1980s, she was still generating money from selling wet sugar.

Though she is no longer able to ply the trade, she is peeved about the theft of the mill and copper pots, which she used in the production of wet sugar.

"Is the scrap-metal people them gone with them, Bwoy a tell yuh!" she told The Gleaner.

Daily guide

That aside, the mother of 13 children, one of whom has died, uses Psalm 92 to guide her daily activities. Of course, this sometimes entails shelling pimento and eating at least one solid meal.

"Mi love hard food - coco, yellow yam, negro yam. The light food them and me no agree, it don't help, it make me sick," she said laughing.

Tate hastened to point out that her toothless smile was no indication that she had difficulty eating 'hard food'.

"Them boil the food soft and sometimes me daughter crush the food for me and when me eating me put in me false teeth, but me no really like it," she said, adding that roasted corn is also one of her favourites.

Besides, as her son-in-law, Jeffery Jackson, indicates, she has a special hobby.

"She likes to read and reads a lot, especially the Bible. I don't have a problem with her. She is like a mother to me," Jackson told The Gleaner.

Tate worships at the Cool Shade/Mexico Miracle Gospel Light House and as daughter, Melzader Robinson, pointed out, "Every month I go to fellowship, my mother is there. We go to different churches in Montego Bay, Kingston, Savanna-la-Mar, anywhere the fellowship is, she takes time out to be there, no matter how she feels, she is always there."

Robinson, a farmer for 35 years recalls how her mother's words of encouragement have guided her and her siblings to undertake successful ventures.

"She always says every sorrow has a song and if you have a problem she says, 'Well, tell it to Jesus', that's her encouragement at all times. She always encourages her children with the words of the Bible and this help us to succeed," Robinson told The Gleaner.