Maisie Lowrie passed away on February 17, and a Mass of Thanksgiving was held for her life on Friday, February 26 at the Church of Our Lady of the Angels.

Chief celebrant was Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kingston, Most Rev Charles Dufour. Concelebrants were Archbishop Emeritus Most Rev Edgerton Clarke, Pastor of Our Lady of the Angels Parish, Rev Father Roger Graham, Rt Rev Msgr Gregory Ramkissoon, Rev Fathers, Howard Thompson, Alfred Lee and Deacon Ronald Thwaites and Deacon Wright.

Cantor was Kevin Williams; organists Janice Chambers and James Hamilton; musicians Dwight Richards and Tenuke Doyley performed.

Tributes were given by Church Council chairman Edna Hanson, her children and grandchildren.

Remembrance by the children of Maisie Lowrie

In the district of Big Bridge, Westmoreland, little Maisie grew up in a family of farmers and fisherfolk. She remembers waking at 4 o’clock in the morning to prepare lunch for her father and mother, Mr and Mrs Joseph Williams, and her seven brothers who would leave for their rice field bordering the Cabarita River. Without the utilities we take for granted today, she washed and ironed their khaki suits, and kept the house and yard clean.

Her father was an elder in the Presbyterian Church and had nightly Bible readings with his devout daughter Maisie. Her mother was also a dedicated church member, of whom Mommy said, “My mother worked very hard, as hard as the men in the family.”

Mommy taught Sunday school and under Mrs. Swaby, learned and taught baking. She also attended sewing school.

She married the dashing Sydney Gopaulsingh when she was 22 and their four children were born at the Gopaulsingh homestead in Hartford, Westmoreland. After an extended illness, her first husband passed away.

Widowed with four children, ages six years to seven months, Maisie set up her little house and shop with assistance from her mother, in the heart of Savanna-la-Mar. She constantly drilled into us the importance of a good education. She wrote in large letters and pasted on the wall, two motivational ditties: “Good, better, best/never let it rest” and “labour for learning/before you grow old.”

Mommy toiled mightily to send Frances and Jean to “the good Catholic school on Lewis Street”. She bartered her sewing skills and grocery deliveries for a portion of their school fees. They had become such fixtures in the Sav-la-mar library that when Miss Ottey, the librarian, heard that they were “migrating” to Kingston after our mother remarried, she had a dinner at her house in honour of her most voracious little readers!

Arriving in Kingston, suddenly the wife of the upwardly mobile accountant, Joscelyn Lowrie, Maisie now had a partner that shared her zeal for fulfilling the potential of their children. Our school reports were filed in chronological precision by our father, who would read them out loud at the dinner table. Mommy kept those files on us to the end of her life.

Our little house in Pembroke Hall should have been a brief stop in our new Dad’s meteoric rise after becoming a chartered accountant, but illness incapacitated him and he was confined to a wheelchair.

We have no idea how we survived with Dad in and out of hospital. Mommy became his 24/7 caregiver and yet always had delicious meals on our table and weekly baked treats. To supplement our income, Mommy raised chickens in secret, afraid that her professional husband would object. However, when she finally confessed, he set up accounting for her, naming the file, “MaisLow Chicks”. When people discovered her baked delights, he also put accounting in place for her, stressing that her skill was very valuable!

JEAN

Mommy had some sayings that must have been Westmoreland-born. She bought a new freezer and warned us not to place anything on it. Later that day, we saw her putting a dish on it and when she saw our expression, she declared, “Massa horse, Massa grass!”

When we stopped on the road to the country to buy fruit, Mommy would say to the vendor, “Don’t give me any bad ones – anyone who robs me will not prosper!” That reaped her the best from their stalls. Thrift was a watchword in our house. Bank accounts were opened for each child, and though we could barely reach the counter at the building society, we had to make our own regular deposits.

Mommy loved her brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews and their children. Our home was their home and it gave us such a rich life. Every summer when we were teens, Mommy would send us to “spend time” with our grandmother and we would be so lovingly cared for by her siblings, especially our late Uncle Melvin, Aunt Ivy, Uncle Elias and Aunt Vick.

Mommy was distraught after our Dad passed in 1977. It was the birth of her first grandchild, Tony’s daughter Danya, a few years later that revived her spirits and then Mom threw herself into church activities. She was an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion at this very Our Lady of the Angels Church, driving and taking the Blessed Sacrament to her shut-ins each Sunday.

She also became a mentor for the youth group and we were always amazed at how many she could fit into her car! She had great stories to share about the Wood and Foo children.

Family and friends knew they had to buy tickets for her church fundraisers – COD! She gloried in her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and enjoyed the camaraderie of her dear church sisters. Mrs Lowe, Mrs Brissett, Mrs Foo, Mrs Stephenson, Mrs Simpson, Miss Beacon, the late Deacon and Mrs Williams, the late Mrs Adams were like family – how she loved them.

Her cake stall at OLA was what we now call a “sell-off”! A gifted dressmaker and baker, she made wedding dresses and wedding cakes for her children and family members. Some of her cakes featured fountains and many sugar roses, doves and swans. She developed her own method of transporting these delicate pieces to assemble them at weddings, including Fran and Bill’s wedding in the US!

Mommy and her friend Mrs Lowe were leaders of the Pembroke Hall branch of the Women’s Federation of Jamaica, for which Mommy was the treasurer. Each year, Mommy would enter her fruitcake in the Women’s Federation culinary competition, and every year she would win first prize!

FRANCES

Mommy was an independent woman. She was reluctant to stop driving herself around, even after she had an encounter at the Boulevard Plaza. She had driven to the bank in the plaza and just after re-entering her car, a man jumped into the passenger seat beside her. “What are you doing in my car?” she demanded of the man. Then she proceeded to tell him about her faith. “You are a woman of God,” commented the man. Before suddenly exiting her car, he pointed to her untouched handbag, and shouted, “See you bag there!” When we begged her not to drive anywhere alone again, she repeated the words that had become her motto: “I am a woman of faith, not of fear.”

Mass and Sunday school were obligatory and nightly prayer was a ritual in our house – we said the Rosary, a total of 67 prayers on nights when we had special intentions such as when Daddy would become very ill or was in great pain. Over a period of about 30 years when Mommy visited me she requested that I take her to the Catholic Basilica in Washington DC, driving distance from my house. Despite my concerns, she insisted that I drop her there on my way to work and pick her up at the end of my workday. Her purpose: to spend the day praying for her children. That memory still leaves me in awe.

Mommy was the prayer warrior for family and friends alike. We routinely got calls from friends who were long migrated to ask for Mommy to send up prayers for them.

Mommy loved the Rosary, and it was her constant companion, praying us through exams, illnesses and our various challenges. She loved the Eucharist and would often say to us on Sunday afternoons, “I wasn’t feeling well but I went to Mass, and after communion I felt much better!” She loved to watch the mass and other programmes on EWTN. She had numerous prayer books – she loved “Prayers to the Sacred Heart”, and of course her Bible.

As her children, we recall one of her favourite verses, “Spare not the rod and spoil the child.” And did she put that into practice! But… we are no worse for the wear! She did grow sweeter and gentler as we matured. Mommy supported us through our own entry into fatherhood and motherhood – our children were her joy. We know that it was the divine power of God that took her through the many trials of her life, to enjoyable moments in her later years. How she enjoyed her visit to India, exploring the markets and coming back to the hotel every evening with a new-found treasure. And then, her visit to the seat of her beloved church, the Vatican, and to Assisi to visit the home of her favourite saint, Saint Francis, for whom her mother and I were named.

Maisie Lowrie’s 90-year sojourn on this Earth has been a blessing to us, her children, her family, her friends, her Church and her community. We will never fully understand how our Mother achieved all that she did with the little she had.

Mommy was especially proud that her sons-in-law are answering the call. Hubert Chin is a lector at Stella Maris Church. Bill Beard, my husband, is a member of our church choir in Maryland. She was overjoyed when Bill had the privilege to sing in the Archdiocesan choir for Pope Francis’ mass in Washington DC late last year — the same location where she spent full days praying for her loved ones. Thank you, God, for gifting us with such a Mother.

TONY

When I decided to join Mommy in the love of Jesus and the work of His Church as an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, she sent me a congratulatory card in which she wrote the following message:

“Dear Tony, I really thank God that you have decided to give yourself to Jesus. Matthew 7:7 says “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened for you”.

She continued: “I am very happy that you knocked and the Lord showered His Holy Spirit on you. For an increase in faith and confidence in God, I offer you this:

“One who loves the life of the church senses in his heart not only the sentiments expressed by Peter in his haunting question: ‘Lord, to whom can we go?’ but also the conviction that there is no better place to be than in the church. It is good for us to be here as Peter answered his own question with: ‘You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that You are the Holy One of God’ (John 6 verses 68-69)

“My dearest, beloved son Tony, the Holy Spirit will continue flowing in your soul and entire body.

“Lots of love, prayers and thankfulness to God.

“Your Loving Mommy.”

8th May 2011.

Thank you, Mommy.

Maisie loves this church, not the building, but the Body of Christ which we assume by our membership. She was so happy to see that we started our evangelisation programme, because it hurt her terribly to see the empty seats during Mass when we should be welcoming the many people that are in need of Jesus’ healing and perfect love.

Dear Mommy, you have arrived at your true abode; you are now a member of the Communion of Saints. We know we can continue to count on your prayers as you enjoy the everlasting happiness that you have striven for, all your days.

We thank you, we miss you, we love you.