Although she is well known for her sense of humour, Linnette Mitchell, now 103, is also known as a woman who will speak the truth at all times, come what may.

“She is very fair and she tries to split justice,” Mitchell’s grandniece Yvonne Clarke-Henry said. “That’s Aunt Linnette. No matter what. She was a plain speaker … she says it as it is. She does not dread anyone when it comes to speaking the truth,” Clarke-Henry said.

Born in Black Hill, Portland on February 6, 1911, to parents Martha and James Barnes, Mitchell grew up with her two sisters and one brother. Though both her sisters have since died, Mitchell’s brother Stanford Agustus Barnes is still alive and will be 100 years old come next January.

“As a little girl I used to love to go to school,” Mitchell said from her Black Hill home two Thursdays ago. “I went to the Black Hill Elementary, and the most mi used to do was go to church.”

Mitchell, who sat on her bed propped up with pillows, is unable to see and walk around but hears moderately and recalls incidents from her past. Though she could not recall the year she was married, Mitchell humorously remembered the love between her husband ‘Mass Israel’ and herself.

“A nuh mi fell in love with him, a him fell in love wid mi and take me,” she said with a laugh. “Mi not even know where him did come from.”

Her husband, who was also known to community and family members as ‘South’, was described by his wife as a good tailor. When provoked, he would turn to his wife and say: ‘Linnette mi we throw stone’ something the family still laughs about today, years after his passing.

The union produced two daughters, one of whom died in her early 20s while the other, Cynthia, now resides in England. Cynthia has since given Mitchell five grandchildren.

But Mitchell loved children and was not content to care only for her own two, but instead took in a number of children who were both relatives and non-relatives alike.

Marcia Swire-Walker who now lives in Chicago is one such person. She was described by family members as Mitchell’s ‘adopted’ daughter and the number one person in the centenarian’s life. Swire-Walker tends to just about all of Mitchell’s financial needs, and though she is not physically with her, she ensures that she is well taken care of.

Mitchell worked as a higgler travelling from Portland to the Coronation Market in West Kingston weekly.

“She went to market up to when she was in her 80s, but she stopped because her eyesight was going bad,” Mitchell’s grandniece Hyacinth White told the Sunday Observer.

“When I say go to market I mean she drive on the big market truck. She was hard-working, she worked very, very, very hard,” White said.

White also described Mitchell as an encouraging person who shared a special bond with her siblings and other family members.

“She used to encourage people and she and her siblings lived so good,” White said. “My grandmother is her sister and so the siblings used to live loving and caring. If anything happened they would work it out. I remember once when something happened to one of the relatives in Port Antonio and Aunt Linnette walked from Black Hill to Port Antonio that night – that is 20-something miles. And we walked to Port Antonio because we never used to have many vehicles on the road,” White recalled. “She was a good provider for her child – because one had died, and those that she raised, so all of them still keep in touch with her. Every birthday is celebrated,” she added.

Like Clarke-Henry, White also recalled her grandaunt as being the type who would always call a spade a spade, and one who would laugh at herself.

“When you talk about humorous, check her! I don’t know if it runs in the Barnes family but when it comes on to jokes she full of them, and she is somebody who will laugh at herself,” White added.

The centenarian’s recollection of Christmas was proof of her ability to laugh at herself.

“Mi and mi sister used to fret when Christmas time and the masquerade a come,” Mitchell said, pausing to laugh. “We used to run go over the banana walk and lie down on we belly in the banana walk because we ‘fraid for masquerade. They wouldn’t do we anything but we did fool fool! But dem did scary man.”

She said that politics then was peaceful and violence-free.

“When mi hear ’bout Bustamante was when him come into power and all you could hear people talking bout was ‘Bustamante, Bustamante’, and him used to talk what him was doing,” she stated. “Politics was not like it is now, politicians never used to lie and people a kill people. Both PNP and Labourite used to live good and everybody used to go to political meetings,” Mitchell said. “Every time PNP would attend Labour meeting and Labour attend PNP meeting. Everybody used to just happy together,” she went on.

That peace extended to the wider society.

“People used to tief, but dem never used to tief like now, and dem never bad like now, you never hear bout no killing,” the centenarian said.

Elaine Stephens, Mitchell’s great grandniece, whom she raised since she was less than a year old, said that her great grandaunt helped a number of persons.

She help a whole lot of people – family and non-family. When I came here to live with her I was not yet one and she is the one who took me from town on a market truck, mi and my brother who is dead now,” she explained.

Stephens said that Mitchell loves brown bread and ice cream.

“Mi really love ice cream,” the centenarian interjected as she nodded.

“She not getting as much now though because they said she have a touch of sugar,” Stephens continued. “She don’t love (ground) food but she love bread and tea.”

“Mi will eat brown bread morning noon and night but mi eat anything they give me still. But if they give me brown bread mi love that,” the centenarian chipped in again.

Mitchell was also described as a God-fearing person who loves her church and loves to pray.

Caption

Mitchell 1

Linnette Mitchell, 103, from Black Hill in Portland still loves to laugh and give jokes.

Mitchell 2

Centenarian Linnette Mitchell and (from left) her great grandniece Elaine Stephens and grandnieces Hyacinth White and Yvonne Clarke-Henry.

Mitchell 3

Hyacinth White shares a laugh with her grandaunt 103-year-old Linnette Mitchell, at the centenarian’s home in Black Hill, Portland, two weeks ago.

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Centenarian Linnette Mitchell is flocked by family members (from left) Yvonne Clarke-Henry, Elaine Stephens, Tatyanna Burton, Rosalee Lindsay and Hyacinth White at the centenarian’s home in Portland.

(PHOTOS: KENYON HEMANS)