The Cayman Brac community has been mourning the loss of centenarian Vera Virginia Rankine, who passed away earlier this week.
Rankine nee Bodden, known as Mrs. Vera to many on the Brac, died on Monday at the age of 102, six months short of her 103rd birthday.
She was the oldest resident on Cayman Brac, District Commissioner Mark Tibbetts told the Cayman Compass on Thursday, adding that District Administration was “saddened” by her passing.
“As the eldest member of our Cayman Brac Community, she would have lived through the catastrophes of not only the historic ’32 Storm, but also those of Hurricanes Allen in 1980 and Paloma in 2008. As a well-known and respected resident of the island, [she] attended Church of God Holiness, Spot Bay church and was a devout Christian who was known for reciting very long poems, being blessed with a brilliant memory,” said Tibbetts, in an email to the Compass.
He said that Rankine was also musically inclined, playing the harmonica and singing in the church choir.
She also helped to ensure the success of the ever-popular annual Spot Bay Christmas Singspiration, he added.
“On behalf of the Brac community, I extend deepest condolences to her family during this difficult time and pray for God’s comfort and peace,” Tibbetts said.
A mother remembered
Her daughter Aloma Parchman, speaking with the Cayman Compass Thursday, said her mother was well known in the Spot Bay community.
“She was well loved… she and her brother [Kirklin Rankine] both used to play the harmonica… at Christmas concerts and church functions,” she said.
Parchman said her mother played the harmonica well and had a great love for music.
“Oh, she could play,” her daughter said, adding that her mother and siblings were raised by Parchman’s great-grandparents Lemuel Walton and Lizzette Walton, and Rankine’s mother Helena Bodden.
Grandson Ronnie Rankine attested to his grandmother’s musical skills, saying, “She was great at playing the harmonica and she sang like the birds.”
Parchman said Rankine was employed by several prominent Caymanian families as a helper before moving to New York to work for a number of years.
She returned home to work at Southern Cross Club in Little Cayman, before retiring.
The mother of four, Parchman said, got on well with those in the community and “had no quarrel with anyone”.
“She worked very hard in her life. She had a very hard life… only after we got big… her life [got] better, but through her life she had to struggle raising her children. She worked really hard,” Parchman recalled.
She said her mother had been living at the Kirkconnell Community Care Centre for the last seven years and had taken ill two weeks ago; she was then hospitalised until her passing Monday.
A funeral service for Rankine will be held at 2pm on Sunday, 11 Sept., at the Church of God Holiness Spot Bay, Cayman Brac. Interment will follow at the Spot Bay Cemetery, Cayman Brac.
The family requests that all attending the celebration of life service wear blue, her favourite colour.
Rankine leaves behind her four children, seven nieces, one nephew, 13 grandchildren,
26 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.
She was preceded her in death by her parents, her four siblings, her husband and son.
Related Videos
