Paul W Ivey

The Matriarch Paul W Ivey

Edith 'Pearl' Ivey stood a mere five feet in height, which belied that she was a mighty giant. Widowed at 40 years-old, after tragedy struck down her husband leaving her to care for their nine (9) children, she demonstrated 'strength-of-a-woman, ' and entrepreneurial ingenuity to triumph and mine success from the dire circumstance that would've driven lesser mortals straight into the lunatic asylum. As her family's Matriarch, Edith 'Pearl' Ivey needs no physical monuments to honour her enduring legacy - this amazing heroine has already earned immortality in the memories of the massive army of descendants (including the author, her grandson) who now perpetuate her values, as well as her DNA, which is the ultimate "biological baton" that makes everlasting life possible. Born in 1905 - eighty-three (83) years after her great grandparents who were born in 1822 before slavery was abolished in Jamaica - Edith 'Pearl' Ivey lived for most of the 20th Century, and died in 1990. Her remarkable life, and those of her other relatives that are chronicled herein, give readers an intimate portrait of a family and a curated sample of significant cultural, socio-economic, and technological changes that occurred in Jamaica (under colonial rule by Britain and post-Independence), and globally