RUBERTHA Rebecca Little-White, the 92-year-old matriarch of the Little-White family which includes filmmaker Lennie Little-White and nutritionist Dr Heather Little-White, has passed on.

Rubertha, who taught at the Somerton All-Age School in St James for some 45 years, transitioned peacefully at her daughter’s home in Kingston on Thursday, April 12.

She is credited with influencing the lives of a number of prominent Jamaicans during her career at Somerton All-Age, which ended 25 years ago. Among her pupils were former Prime Minister P J Patterson, Political Ombudsman Bishop Herro Blair and reggae star Jimmy Cliff, a distant cousin.

It is said that she nurtured Cliff’s music career from a very early age in Somerton, and engineered his move to Kingston, where he attended Kingston Technical High and later emerged as Jamaica’s first international reggae star in the 1970s.

Her son, Lennie, is Jamaica’s best-known film producer/director and head of Mediamix Limited, while her daughter Heather is one of Jamaica’s best-known food and nutrition specialists.

Heather recalled her mother as a disciplinarian who loved her community, her maroon ancestry and her students, and was committed to their success as professionals. “She was a very kind person, a leader in her own right in the community. She was gentle, soft-spoken and a disciplinarian who loved her students,” she said.

Lennie, meanwhile, recalled his mother refusing to have her hair “straightened”, as she impressed upon those around her the teachings of the late national hero Marcus Garvey. “She was a liberated woman who held strongly to her Maroon heritage and her belief in the words of Marcus Garvey,” he said.

Rubertha was president of the Women’s Guild of the United Church of Jamaica for two years, prior to joining her daughter at Temple of Life in 1999 after gunshot wounds from a 1999 violent robbery left Heather a paraplegic.

Although Rubertha’s death did not come as a surprise to the family, the timing did, Lennie said, as she had just recovered “miraculously” from a fall at home in January which broke her hip and required an operation at the University Hospital of the West Indies.

“Even though you prepare your mind to accept the passage, the passing is not without sorrow,” he admitted.

Her body will be cremated after a thanksgiving service on Saturday morning at 11 o’clock at Unity of Jamaica, Old Hope Road in Kingston.