Centenarian Iris Duffus: Disciplinarian with a Playful Spirit

Defying gravity and age, Iris Duffus spent decades embracing her adventurous spirit, climbing trees until she was in her 90s.

On several occasions in the last 15 years, when her grandchildren and great-grandchildren visited, Ms. Duffus told them that it was the last time they would see her, as she was going to die.

The reply from one of her great-granddaughters, Maxine McGann-Davis, was always: “Death is not ready for you yet, so you just have to sit and wait until your appointed time comes.”

Ms. Duffus is 108 years old and is the oldest among 444 registered centenarians across Jamaica.

When JIS News visited her on Wednesday (May 14), she was sitting quietly on her verandah in Brivate, Frazers Content, in St. Catherine, surrounded by family.

With diminishing memory, sight and hearing, she held a quiet disposition and responded in a soft voice when she was called by her affectionate name, Louise.

Ms. Duffus grew up in Dover, St. Catherine, and moved to Old Road in Kitson Town, St. Catherine, as an adult.

She attended Guanaboa Vale Primary School in the parish and worked at Innswood Estate on the sugar plantation, before venturing into small-scale farming.

Ms. Duffus started her family in her early 20s, producing four children – three daughters and one son.

Her eldest children, Clifton Lawrence, 86 years old, and Ruby Lawrence reside in England, while Lawner Stephenson and Helena Anderson live in Jamaica.

Ms. Anderson described her mother as a disciplinarian who is very quiet, intelligent and supports her children well.

“She did everything that she could to send us to school. We had to go to church. Even if she wasn’t going, we had to go, and school – you don’t miss school unless you are sick,” she told JIS News.

The best memory she shared with her mom, which she described as exhilarating, was when they got baptised on the same day alongside her sister, Lawner, in 1965 at the Church of God Seventh-day in Old Road.

Ms. Anderson shares that her mom was very active up until about two years ago and could read without glasses up to 2024.

“Now, she just stays in bed for most of the day. She has high blood pressure, but that’s not really a challenge. It’s controlled,” she says.

Ms. Anderson credits her mother’s longevity to the grace of God and her healthy eating habits.

“Growing up, meat was too expensive. Meat was only for weekend. So, during the week, we ate mainly vegetables with the starch. The appetite is not so good now, but routinely, I cook soup every Friday. For the past two weeks, she has been refusing the soup. She doesn’t want any soup. She likes fries, so I give her fries and she likes KFC,” she notes.

Mrs. McGann-Davis recounts visiting her great-grandmother when she was much stronger and living in Kitson Town.

“I said, Grandma, what are you doing? and she said, ‘I’m cooking’. I said, well, me not leaving, cause me hungry. She said, ‘I’m cooking a meatless stew peas, so I don’t know if you want it’,” she said.

When the meal was finished, she shared her a plate and when she enquired why her great-grandmother had not shared a plate for herself, her response was: “Tell you the truth, I don’t know what and what I put in there, but me cook.”

“So, me seh, ‘what that mean?’ She said, ‘Well, if you eat it and you nuh drop down dead, then I will eat after.’ So, I literally ate the food and sat there. Me seh, Granny, yuh not going to eat? She said, ‘Nope. When you belch, I will go and eat’,” she shared, erupting in laughter.

Ms. Stephenson told JIS News that it is a wonderful feeling to have her mother alive at 108 years old.

She recalled that her mother would frequently climb naseberry trees to pick and prepare the fruits for sale at the market.

That process involved digging a hole, lining it with the leaves of the trumpet tree, placing the naseberries in the hole, adding another layer of leaves and then covering it with soil.

“Yuh see when it is ready and she go and look at it, wow! Everything steam,” Ms. Stephenson shared.

Erona Stephenson has may treasured memories of her grandmother, with whom she has lived since she was five months old.

“It’s a blessing to have her in my life until this moment. She has lived an exemplary life for us and for the wider community,” the 48-year-old told JIS News.

She described Ms. Duffus’ former home in Old Road as a refugee camp.

“She was always taking in people wherever they’re coming from. If they’re sick, if they’re in need of anything, Mama will be there for them. Sometimes we’d have to give up our bed just to make other people come in and sleep and wherever she is sleeping, if she’s sleeping on the floor, Erona is right beside her because I am the baby,” Erona shared.

She remembers vividly the last time her grandmother climbed a tree – the year was 2012.

“She came out and she said to me, ‘Erona, I am going up in that tree and if I fall you just pick me up’. I said to her, Mama, no, because if you fall, maybe I cannot pick you up. I was there looking and she went in the tree, she climbed and picked her naseberries and when she finished, she said, ‘Come take the bag for me’. I took the bag from her and she came down and she said, ‘Thank you Jesus’,” Erona recounted.