The Story of
Dominica's Grand Old Lady.

Seen here with the radio personality "Alex Bruno" who first broke the story

Elizabeth "Pampo" Israel Born: January 27, 1875 and still alive

Dominica's Grand Old Lady. Lucien Dasilva was always convinced that Elizabeth "Pampo" Israel was a "very special lady".

Not only because she was a loving, caring and kind neighbour but there was something about her age that aroused Dasilva's curiosity and pushed her into research that eventually revealed that a Dominican is the oldest woman alive today.

Asilva's research, which lasted about three years, took her to the Catholic Church archives, where she paged through volume of baptism registers going back more than one hundred years ago. I her search, she found the name of Israel's godmother, Louisia Frager, and confirmed that Elizabeth Israel was born on January 27, 1875.

The confirmation of her age should now put her into the Guinness Book of World records, which still list 119 year old Sarah Clark Knauss, a former Pennsylvania seamstress, as the oldest woman alive.

Before Dasilva's discovery, almost the entire Glanvillia village believed Pampo Israel was much older than 124 years.

Seventy-two-year-old Victoria Remy remembered Pampo as a grown lady, when she was growing up.

"She knew when my grandmother brought my mother to Dominica…my mother died at 84 and I never knew my grandmother", said Remy. Eighty-one-year-old Benjamin Amos knew "Pampo" when he was a boy living at Picard Estate, near Portsmouth.

"She was a kind woman with a sharp tongue…she would use expressions but didn't mean anything," Amos remarked.

Resmond Ettienne, 31, said when his 81 year old grandfather first knew of Pampo Israel, she was already a fully grown woman.

Pampo Israel is believed to be one of the last surviving direct descendants of a West Indian slave, who moved to Dominica either from Antigua or Monstserrat judging from her accent and worked at the Morne Talien Plantation in Colihaut.

According to Eighty-year-old Martha Martin, who was raised in Glanvillia from the age of two, remembers Pampo's mother as a tall red skinned woman, who spoke kokoy, the dialect of Montserratians and Antiguan slaves.

Those people were scattered as slaves in Colihaut and as far as Marigot. The Centenarian's mother was transferred to Picard in Portsmouth following the devastating hurricane of 1838.

Pampo's mother is also believed to have lived past a hundred years.

Mrs. Israel also worked at Picard, joining that plantation when she was twenty-five, picking peas for a penny a day.

She was promoted foreman at Picard and continued working there until she retired.

It is still not clear at what age did Pampo got married, but it is believed that she delivered her only son, Burleigh Codrington, when she was well-advanced in age. There are those who think she might have been in her early forties.

Dasilva, who talks of Dominica's oldest woman in the World recalls her saying: "piki nigga now ah mek piki nigga but we wan ole woman when me mek me son" - meaning children are now having children but she was a matured woman when she gave birth to her son, who died at a very young age.

Mrs. Israel, who's speech is now impaired, the result of a recent stroke, is still strong and active, though blind. She has attributed her longevity to the foods she ate, including Callalloo, Crab, Sweet oil, Dumpling, fish and cane juice and cane syrup.

She smoked for a short while when she was young but never used alcoholic beverages.

"The manure (artificial fertilizer) they using now is what is making people weak and killing them slowly…. they will never live long," said Mrs. Israel.

She enjoyed singing and loved animals, especially horses and dogs. She had no best friend but enjoyed adventure as a young girl.

She believed in discipline and reminded that in her days children had to be well mannered.

"Piki nigga now has no manners. Badly trained," she remarked.

Dominica and World's oldest woman is more than an institution at Glanvillia. Those who have been associated with her described the senior citizen as a loving, caring and kind person. Everyone young and old loves her.

"i knew her as a good grown up person," neighbour cletina benjamin told the chronicle. i live next door and she use to help me well with my children. when i come home from work she would help us. i was raised by my grandmother and whatever she had she would give to my grandmother. when granny was sick she would help and i respect her now as an elderly person, "the glanvillia neighbour related.

Although she was generous she was very strict with her possessions.

"We never touched her things unless given permission. She was the only person in the village whom none of the young children gave the name "witch, said 80 year old Martha Martin.

"She shared everything and would shell coffee and poucousou peas for her neighbours.

"She is still a very nice person, that why I take pleasure to take care of her whenever i can," martin added.

For more than a hundred years, 'Pampo' Israel has kept in her possession, a jealously guarded photo of her only son and Catholic priests J.M. Lambert and l.R. Dever, who officiated at her wedding ceremony several decades ago.

What is she now hopping for is her twilight years?

She is still strong, sits up in bed on her own and eat heartily although she can no longer manage her favourite dumplings.

She is a fervent follower of D.B.S' Felix Henderson's Creole Programme "Espeweansr Creole", broadcast daily between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.

Her days are not yet numbered, she says.

I hope to live for at least ten more years," she quipped.