MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Eulogised as a “woman among women who was not afraid to live life to the fullest for her Lord and Master”, Amy Darby nee Ashman, who died last October at age 104, is also being remembered among Jamaica’s outstanding early childhood teachers and leaders.

“A dedicated educator, she has left a rich legacy founded on investing in the future of generations of children during a career spanning a rich and impactful 40 years,” read a tribute from the Ministry of Education at the thanksgiving service for her life, held at the Mandeville Parish Church (St Mark).

The education ministry recalled that a former education officer, Edna Coulton, once described Darby as “the best early childhood teacher in the island”.

Darby was trained at Bethlehem Teachers’ College at Malvern, St Elizabeth, during World War Two in the 1940s, which was remembered as “a time of much tumult in the world”.

Her 40 years as an educator embraced service at Mount Peto Primary School, Montego Bay Infant School, Lucea Infant School, where she served as head teacher, and Mandeville Infant School where her service was said to be transformational.

“For over 20 years she, with loving care and strong zeal, was instrumental in ensuring pupils [at Mandeville Infant] received, among other things, a school canteen; music as part of their instruction, the reclassification of the school from a Grade Three to a Grade Two in 1978 due to increased enrolment, as well as the reactivation and sustenance of the Parent-Teacher Association,” the Ministry of Education said.

Even after official retirement in 1980, Darby’s “appetite for nation-building through education was not sated”, and she joined Church Teachers’ College as a temporary lecturer.

And at her church, St Mark’s Anglican, her early childhood training and experience proved pivotal as she supervised the church’s three basic schools.

Among numerous awards for her service to education and society was the Badge of Honour for Meritorious Service.

Relatives and friends remembered Aunt Amy as a loving, caring, cheerful woman whose laughter was “a source of reassurance to all whom she encountered…”

Originally from Glasgow in Manchester, Darby was the daughter of William and Maud Ashman. While living and working in Montego Bay she met and married the late Constantine Darby, a civil servant. The marriage produced four children — sons Constantine, Paul, and Andrew; and daughter Elizabeth, who described her late mother at the thanksgiving service as “irreplaceable”.

— Garfield Myers