Lorencia celebrates 101

MIA HENDERSON

Larencia Locario celebrated her 101st birthday among family and friends at her home in Pipiol road, Santa Cruz, yesterday.

Larencia was a single mother of four who spoke with pride of her four children Yvonne, Delmar and Julien along with her daughter Carol who passed away.
“I gave them the best I could. I treated them well and every one of them have a trade,” she said.

Larencia believes all youth should have a trade as her children went on to be a carpenter, teacher, steel bender and nurse.

As for herself, Larencia worked various domestic jobs with her passion in sewing.
Larencia’s father migrated to Trinidad from Venezuela where he worked in the fishing village of San Souci. She moved to Port of Spain in her adult life where she raised her children. She affirmed the statement, “It takes a village to raise a child,” as she thanked the community of Belrose, East Port of Spain, who helped look after her children when she was at work.

“In those days raising a child wasn’t hard. If you had to work, your neighbour would keep your children,”she said.

Larencia spoke of her own childhood where her family would look after children in the neighbourhood while their parents worked in the cocoa fields.

During her time at school, Larencia would return home for lunch where she enjoyed anything her grandmother, who she called “Ganga,” made, except for cocoa tea which she said was too greasy. She remembered her Ganga’s homemade bread, made in an oven with “fire on top and fire below (where) the bread would bake nice.”

Growing up in a fishing village, Larencia reminisced on the days she spent on her father’s boat, Babydoll, where her and cousins Agnes and Rose sang songs and laughed. Remembering some of the songs, she sang to Newsday reporters.

Later she said, “We would run away in the evening to the beach, hang up our clothes and bathe until all five/four O’clock. They used to say not to bathe in the sea late because that is the time current came in (bringing in dirt) but we bathed anyway.
“We never used to buy fish. My father had a boat and he didn’t used to sell fish. You bring provision, plantain, yam, cassava bread or whatever and he would give you whatever for it. They used to exchange. A lady used to give us farina (a type of cassava flour) and we gave her fish.

“Sometimes they would come in with boatloads (of fish), when we had too much we used to corn it in the sun and go to Sangre Grande and sell it because it was too much to keep.” She also recalled her excitement at sitting on the train to San Fernando.
Larencia believes that the nation is less community oriented as, “Now people don’t have time for their children. If people mind your children you have to pay them. If you want a pin, you have to buy it.”

Despite suffering a stroke which restricted use of her right arm, Larencia’s grandson Marvin Callender commented on how alert she was.

“As much as everything, in her age she don’t forget nothing,” he said.
Yvonne Rique, Larencia’s first-born, spoke of the many evenings she enjoyed reminiscing on the past with her mother. Larencia, when asked what secret she had to living past 100, she said, “I ain’t knock about. I went to church and looked after my children.

“I never joined any other religion. I am a Catholic, I was born a Catholic and at this stage I ain’t joining any other religion.”
Larencia said she believed her Catholic faith had guided her and will continue to guide her through her life.

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