Lady Bustamante was as an aunt to me and did for me what she did for others: gave us purpose in life, comforted and admonished us when needed. I thank her and now pay her tribute publicly. I listened to the funeral and wished I could have attended, but having just returned from the annual meetings of the Baptist World Alliance in Amsterdam, it was impossible to leave the church I pastor so soon.

I first met 'Miss Gladys' as a boy of 12 at Bath Fountain, where my parents had gone to meet with Bustamante on St Thomas matters. I never quite knew what the matters were, except I did overhear my mother, who taught at the Richmond Gap Elementary School, talk about teachers, and my father, Rev Cleveland Augustus, as he called himself, about coffee. Meantime, Miss Gladys talked to us children and told us stories and answered questions.

study my lessons

I was just about to go to Calabar High School and she told me that she thought that I would do something for the people and so I should study my lessons well. I hope I have done so.

We did not meet very much until later in life when I was about to go to England to study. Over the years, 'Chief' had taken an interest in my welfare and was in touch with my father on many occasions. When I was to leave for England to study he sent for me and gave me some fatherly advice, and at the same time Lady Bustamante was ample in her warnings about what she expected of the personal life of a parson. Her advice was to help me over these 50 years.

It was when I returned and took a deeper interest in trade union matters that we came to know each other better. I was the general secretary of the Student Christian Movement and met the Hon Clifton Stone, then at the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union and a member of the Methodist Student Movement at Howard University.

Together with the late Rt Hon Hugh Shearer and the blessing of Lady B we arranged for students to come from the United States to work with Jamaican students in a project at Alley. It was a great success. It was an exciting time in the trade union movement with many youngsters entering, and Lady B and Edith Nelson took us under their wings. Lady B treated each of us as special and dealt with us as individuals.

in no way sanctimonious

I came to respect even more the deep faith of both Lady B and her husband, Sir Alexander. There were many visits to Irish Town to seek counsel and advice, and on each of them Lady B was always on to her hymns and her prayers. Please do not think that the visits were sanctimonious in the bad sense. They were convivial, but in hindsight they became sacred times.

A little child looking into the coffin at the body of her dead grandfather said, "It looks like him but it is not him." Lady B, so it is with us. We say you are dead but that is not the whole truth, for you are very much alive to each of us whom you have touched.

I am , etc.,

Horace O. Russell

horussell@aol.com

Philadelphia, USA