At 78, Eugene Lewis is the chairperson for her community and she supports herself by rearing chickens and ducks, coupled with produce from her fruit trees and she maintains that she wants it no other way since her independence is her greatest asset.
Mrs Lewis, as she is known by many in the Cummings Park, Sophia area, lives alone in the house she said she “built myself.”
“When I moved there it was just bush and I had one neighbour… I lived and I built, I built my house myself. I tiled my house myself. I fixed my bathroom and toilet myself. The only thing I pay do is the plastering and to put on the roof,” Mrs Lewis told the Sunday Stabroek in a recent sit down.
Now a widow, Mrs Lewis had moved to the area with her then husband—former army officer Edward Lewis—after he was involved in a problem with a neighbour and not wanting any further issue the couple decided to move to the area where they had a piece of land and eventually they built a permanent structure.
The mother and grandmother is a stickler for time as she arrived not a minute late for the interview.
It has not been an easy road and she shared some very sad experiences but indicated that she only wanted the positive and enduring ones to be told because as she puts it, “I have no regrets in life. What the lord has put me down here to do I have done.”
Her only wish is to one day travel to America and visit one of the libraries because she believes there is much material on subject areas—such as the bible—that are of interest to her and can offer more understanding.
As chairperson of her community, chief among her achievements is the building of a community centre and a nursery school and her wish is for the community to have a health centre.
She also ensures that she celebrates the festive season but more important to her is making sure that the children in her neighbourhood are treated.
25 cents
Mrs Lewis could not help but to comment on the cost of living today as compared to when she was a child and a young adult.
She lamented at the cost of apples and grapes—which are a must at Christmas time— were just 25 cents a pound in her time. “Meat was cheap, rice was cheap and we always use to get a nice time.”
But now it is very expensive, according to her, and even though she worked for just $9 a week at one time, she said she could have done more with that, than a person who is now earning $10,000 a week.
“The cost of living is just so high now and Christmas for me is not Christmas anymore…”
She believes that because Christmas is not Christ centred anymore some prefer to “dress up their homes for New Year’s instead.”
She recalled that as a child and a young adult they would visit homes in the community to sing Christmas carols and persons would share out goodies but now that is a thing of the past.
“I miss those days and this is what the young generation should have been doing. It use to make you and is Christmas morning you deh hammering, and boiling you pepper pot and ham on coals. The pepper pot use to boil in big lard tins in them days.”
Dancing was never her thing “because I would dance in me house but not in public” and so New Year’s would always break her in church.
However, last night she would not have attended church because she was fearful of being robbed.
“Now you cannot leave your home and go out because the minute you back turn they go in your home,” she said, even though she has never been robbed. But she did not “want to put to a test.”
And she misses the fact that churches only ring their bells on Old Year’s night now, when in the past the bell also rang on Christmas day because “Christmas day was a holy day but not anymore.”
“And you use to hear Christmas carols up to January 7, but not anymore as soon as Christmas day past that is it. Christmas was more for the children they use to get ample things but now things so expensive,” she said with a forlorn expression.
56 years ago
Mrs Lewis has kept presents that were given to her on her wedding day, 56 years ago.
“Well is 50 years I live with my husband and people give we them things on we wedding day but is longer I get them because he dead seven years ago and I not counting that I counting how long we live together as husband and wife.”
Speaking about her working years Mrs Lewis said she worked at the Woodlands Hospital for some 23 years and in two instances she believes she saved the hospital from going up in flames.
She recalled that one evening she discovered that a doctor’s office was on fire and she alerted the nurses but warned that they should not inform the patients but evacuate them quietly and call the fire station.
“We call the doctors too and I remember one came out in just he boxers and vest,” she said.
Not one to wait around, Mrs Lewis said she wet quite a few sheets then got a crowbar and opened the doctor’s office and quickly threw the sheets out on the fire outing it in the process.
“One doctor asked me why I didn’t break the glass and I had to ask him if he mad that woulda make the fire spread.”
Another time there was a fire in the kitchen and she used the same process of throwing wet sheets on the flames to put it out.
After leaving Woodlands, Mrs Lewis said she gained employment at the National Milling Company where she spent 18 years and today she still has a relationship with the owner and his wife and they would assist her from to time, which is inclusive of a monthly allowance.
They even took her to Canada once to spend the Christmas holidays with them ensuring that she experienced a ‘white Christmas.’
As the wife of an army officer, Mrs Lewis was also a member of the army wives’ club and she recalled that they held exhibitions.
“I remember one year we had dry shrimps, salted fish, pickled beef and I had some homemade wine and [the late President Forbes] Burnham come and buy out like he head in good,” she said with a chuckle.
During her working years she also held children parties.
Comfortable
While Mrs Lewis has two sons, both of whom live overseas, and a few grandchildren, she lives alone which she said “is very comfortable.”
She noted that she rears chickens and ducks but she also has other animals to keep her company.
“I am comfortable with my four dogs, cats, fowls and rabbits. I buy a bag of rice every month for the dogs and I want more dogs. I prefer to know I feed animals than people,” she said and when asked to explain she said “No matter what you try to do for humans they are never contended.”
On a normal day Mrs Lewis said she is up at around 3 am and she reads her bible before getting out of bed to feed her animals and then “look after my house.”
And while she is comfortable with her living arrangements, she is very unhappy with the fact that she has not had electricity since last year October.
She explained that the Guyana Power & Light had removed her defective meter after she had stopped paying her bills since her complaint of the meter malfunctioning was not acted upon.
“When they move the meter if you see how it loose up in the man hand,” she said.
She was told she owed $125,000 and recalled that she saved up some $50,000 and went to the company’s Main Street office to make a payment “but the man tell me I have to get the whole thing how he not accepting it.”
“I save up me pension and I get a $100,000 and I went back again and the same man tell me he can’t accept it. I don’t know how people going with cash and they not accepting and since then I had to spend out the money so now I don’t have any,” she said.
She was forced to purchase a small generator but it cannot power her household appliances, such as her freezer, microwave and television, so she is forced to ask a neighbour to keep her chickens whenever she plucks them for sale.
Asked why she has not approached her sons for assistance Mrs Lewis quickly said that she is not one to “bother my children.
“I don’t tell my children my problems because I don’t know what problems they have and I don’t want to add to theirs. I don’t want to distress them. “I am always happy and you would always find me with a smile on my face. And I am always giving even though I get little.”
