SHE never went to high school, but 83 year-old Eulalee Holness has managed to carve out her own little business empire, one that spans the two parishes of St Elizabeth and Manchester.

Miss Eulie – as she is affectionately called – owns Manchester Pharmacy, the Silver Dawn Beach Cottage in Treasure Beach as well as a farm store and haberdashery in St Elizabeth.

The mother of three is a source of inspiration to her children and grandchildren but Holness will be the first to tell you that her success has been the result of a lifetime of hard work.

At 15 years old, she left the Ballards Valley Elementary School in St Elizabeth to work as a seamstress. The oldest of her struggling parents’ nine children, high school was not an option.

“At the time only white people did know ’bout high school,” Holness recalls.

About a year after leaving elementary school, she was employed with a family, the Witters, as a store clerk over in the neighbouring Myersville community, earning a meagre four shillings a month.

Because of her inexperience, which would mean on-the-job training, she was paid two shillings less than the six usually paid for the position.

The years did not bring much of an improvement in her wages and she was often faced with financial challenges, if only to buy a hat for church.

“As a Moravian I started to take confirmation and I needed a hat. I had to borrow two shillings to put on the four shillings to buy it. And that was only a hat,” the 83 year-old said, chuckling lightly.

Despite the paltry earnings, Holness strongly believes that her first job laid the foundation for the successes that would follow, years later.

“It was a good (experience). Mrs Witter was like a mom to me. We lived like mother and daughter,” she said. “So when I see people fooling themselves now, I say: you can make it if you try.”

Six years after working with the Witters she was offered a new position over in Trelawny where she would be paid 15 shillings each week, three shillings more than what the Witters were paying her every month.

Her employers couldn’t match the offer and Holness had a new job working in her cousins’ store.

But two years into her new job, her mother became ill and she had to return home. But the move later turned out to be another step on her road to success after she and her brother, Harvey, went into business together with an investment of 10 pounds each.

“It was the same grocery business and I did dressmaking and hang up in there,” Holness explained.

It was not long before they were turning a profit. Around that same time, she began another money-making initiative, which was to offer small loans to people travelling to England in the 1960s.

“I loaned them the money and in a couple months time they could pay me back at a profit,” she said, adding that many never bothered to repay her.

Nevertheless, her successes continued, both in her professional and personal life. She met her husband, a farm worker, on the job.

He later contributed to Holness’ business pursuits while allowing her the freedom to make the decisions.

“He is the only man I ever love. I never see another man I love like that, neither before nor since,” she said.

In the years that followed their first meeting, they were married and later started a family that included two daughters and a son. And the first business venture expanded to include a bar on premises owned by Holness. Today, the structure has evolved into a two-storey shopping complex located in Junction Square, St Elizabeth.

On the top floor is a barber salon, a nail shop, an office and an ice-cream parlour.

On the ground floor is the grocery/haberdashery that is operated by Holness’ oldest daughter and graduate of the Excelsior High School, Olive; and a farm store operated by her younger daughter and graduate of Pittman’s College in England, Marcia. Anthony, her son and graduate of the London School of Business, is head of Hardware and Lumber.

Now, despite her age, Holness continues to journey to work each day; and on those rare days when she remains at home, it is not to rest.

She cooks. She cleans. She gardens.

“She is a workaholic,” her daughter, Olive, told the Observer.

Her mother agrees.

“I just can’t keep quiet,” she said.

Looking back at her accomplishments – which included ensuring that her three children received the high school education that she did not – Miss Eulie said she was able to succeed, despite the challenges, through the application of some memory gems she was taught in school by a one of her teachers, Charles Harriott. She passes those lessons on to her own children and grandchildren today.

“Every day I always teach my children and grandchildren to live for something and have a purpose. I always remember being taught that in school from my own teacher Harriott,” she said.

That approach has helped her achieve all she had set out to do.

“I feel that all my labour wasn’t in vain. I haven’t done anything that I regret doing… I have everything in life that I have hoped for,” she said. “If mi die now, mi ready any time.”

But family and friends hope she has many years left.

She is still very much the family matriarch.

“She is more involved in the business and around her children more than anything else. I must say that if she should pass on before me, we have had a good life with her,” said Olive.

What’s next for Miss Eulie?

Maybe a bit more travelling around the world.

Already she has travelled to places like Africa, Canada, the United States and Spain and she said that she intends to pick up where she left off.

“I am too old to wait on anything. If my mind tell mi to do this now, I have to do it,” she said.