IN CONTROL: Mr Williams telling his life story
HIS mother died when he was six and his father died when he was a teenager. At the age of 21 he almost lost his life.
Today, he celebrates over a century of life. He says it was a miracle which kept him alive at 21 and that luck has stayed with him thus far. However, not even a century of miracles seems strong enough to remove some of the anguish of pain and suffering he felt during his formative years.
Joseph Alpheous Williams was born June 22, 1896, in Harmons Manchester. He celebrated his 104th birthday recently at his residence in Toll Gate, Clarendon. Despite his advanced age he exudes a delightful sense of humour and has a remarkable memory.
The first time he saw a car he was about 13 years old.
"A notice was put up in the district that a motor car will be passing through at such an hour," he began. "It said no children must be seen on the road."
"When the day came we heard this big noise like an earthquake. Everybody thought it was judgement come," he chuckled." A policeman came riding up on a horse before the car. When the car came it was a nice Ford."
He lived through World Wars I and II and remembers them quite well.
"In World War I things were just ordinary for us here in Jamaica. We were not really affected by the war." He added that there were no asphalt roads in those days." We never know asphalt road back then, from here right back to Spanish Town was pure broken stones and marl."
World War II, however, was quite different." We couldn't get a lot of goods in the shop. Them married kerosene oil with flour, it got so bad that at one time we couldn't get kerosene oil and we had to use coconut oil which smell so bad!" he said. " Soon after that people started to use candles."
Williams' daughter describes her father as a good man.
" He is beloved by everybody in the area , he is just a good person," she says.
Mr. Williams, at 104 , is only a little hard of hearing. Apart from that, he is as fit as a fiddle.
"The only thing that I do for him is to warm his bath water", says his daughter Pearl Martin. "He bathes himself and does most other things for himself," she said.
If you are wondering if he had a special centenarian's diet there's none. " He eats well," she replied, " [and] him use to eat everything that we eat in the house he has no special diet. Recently, though, he has stopped eating meat, fish, chicken and egg. Not even milk he drinks, he drinks the soya milk"
