DAVID DUNKLEY, Staff Reporter
LOOKS are deceiving, they say, an appropriate description for Elizabeth Thompson-Wilson.
The 100-year-old woman from Bounty Hall, Trelawny, has a cheerful face but said being a centenarian can be very painful as she encounters pain on a daily basis.
"Ah feel a beating in the head and wind come through me ears and it hurts," she told THE STAR. "I also feel pain in my shoulder and upper arm."
The senior citizen was born in Bounty Hall on April 3, 1900. She has survived two brothers and a sister.
Elizabeth said she attended Hampden and Wakefield Elementery schools. After leaving school she worked at the Tilson Sugar Estate in the parish for many years.
She does not remember when she got married to her husband, David, who was a farmer, but has fond memories of him as he was "very nice" and treated her "very good".
She recalled that she met her husband one day when she was going to a nearby district called Johnson Town. She said he stopped her and asked if he could get her.
"I told him to ask my mother and he did and she said yes," Elizabeth said, adding that they began going together until they got married.
The elderly woman gave birth to 12 children, seven of whom died leaving three boys and two girls. She has about 10 grand children, 10 great grand children and eight great great grand children.
Elizabeth is still mobile and still has her teeth. She has eyeglasses but hardly wears them and is a long-standing member of Hampden United Church, where she was a choir member.
She said the difference between Jamaica today and Jamaica of her time, was that there was not many killings. Whenever someone was killed in her days, it would be a shock. Nowadays, she said, if a day passes and someone is not killed, that would be the biggest shock for the country.
How has she managed to live so long?
"Jehovah God keep me," she said, adding that when she was much younger she used to eat a lot of dumplings, yam, potato, rice, pork and fish. "I never eat no chicken and I don't too care about the beef."
