January 31, 2011
CLAUDINA PRINCE was born on November 3rd 1912 in Arima, Trinidad. She was the 5th of 10 children and was the last survivor of her siblings. She married Vernon Boldon from Port of Spain who passed on in his thirties. CLAUDINA was left to raise her 6 children alone: Bertram, Leroy, Guy, Cyril, Pamela, Marlene. She survived by polishing furniture and was employed in the Trinidad Match Factory.
She migrated to Montreal, Canada in 1966 and worked at the St. Margaret’s Senior Home for 6 years. In 1971, she relocated to San Jose CA by which time she was fully occupied with her growing list of grandchildren for whom she cared as deeply as she did for her own children.
Hopelessness, despair, panic, and negativism were not in CLAUDINA’s DNA and she radiated that positive thinking to the whole clan. One might say she never had time for doom and gloom. Another might say her children never missed what they did not have. A third might ask, “ I wonder why ?”
CLAUDINA was a deeply religious Catholic whose ritual included daily Mass and 3 rosaries.
In 2000, CLAUDINA moved east to Weston FL, closer to her 2 daughters.
CLAUDINA was blessed with 13 grand children...5 girls and 8 boys:
Roxanne, Adrian, Abiola, Aisha, Ato, Sean, Anwar, Omar, Ayanna, Okera, Akim, Ian, Anisah. CLAUDINA was also blessed with 15 great grandchildren. To all of us, children, grand children and great grand children, she had one name, ”Granny”.
CLAUDINA, perhaps, would like to say:
“When you wake in the morning, hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight
I am the soft starlight at night”*
CLAUDINA departed this life at 10:35 pm on Saturday January 29th, 2011
She was, indeed, to all of us, a beacon, a guiding light.
*excerpt taken from Do not stand at my grave and weep written in 1932 by Mary Elizabeth Frye