Elizabeth Hurlston, one of four Quincentennial Ambassadors for George Town in 2003, turned 100 last week.
Now largely confined to bed in her home in South Sound, Ms. Hurlston over the years was very active in the community and the church.
In 1976, she received the Queen’s Badge and Certificate of Honour for her contribution to the youth of the Cayman Islands, and in 2001 was awarded an MBE for community service.
Apart from running a little shop over the years, she taught Sunday school at Elmslie Memorial, served the Girls Brigade for 27 years, was a member of the church mission committee and a member of the “In His Steps” visiting team, and went on numerous mission trips to Haiti and the Dominican Republic,
It was on one of these mission trips, at age 94, that suffered injuries to her ribs due to osteoarthritis and at that point, her mission travel ended. At that time she was also persuaded to stop driving. Meanwhile, she was still helping out a couple of afternoons a week in the church office. In the wider community, she has been the chair of the Public Library Committee, a founding member of the Red Cross, the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme and the Garden Club. She has been a Pink Lady, a volunteer at the Pines Retirement Home, Humane Society and teachers aid at Cayman Prep school.
Until the middle of last year, she was still active in a limited way, attended church from time to time and would go out for short walks, but a fall out of bed has kept her housebound since.
Those who wish to celebrate her milestone in life are invited to make a donation to The Village of Hope, a rebuilding project in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, spearheaded by her great friend, Walford Thompson. Each home costs about US$6,000 to build. The organization has agreed that a plaque with the words “The Elizabeth Hurlston House” will be placed on one of the houses there. Donations can be sent to the Elmslie Memorial Church.
Growing up
Born in the Turks and Caicos Islands a few days before the outbreak of World War I, Ms. Hurlston is the youngest of eight children.
She first came to Cayman when her father, Commissioner Hugh Hutchings, who was appointed Commissioner of the Cayman Islands in 1919. She was 4 at the time.
Her father brought about the enactment of the 1920 Education Act, which created a public school system to accommodate all children between the ages of 7 and 14.
She attended school in Jamaica and Antigua and trained as a Montessori teacher in the U.K., before returning to Jamaica to care for her ailing mother. When WWII was about to break out, she trained as a nurse in Bermuda and Canada. She returned to Bermuda to live and work before accepting a post in an Adventist Hospital in Kingston, Jamaica.
Ms. Hurlston would not return to Cayman for another 20 years.
In 1949, she accepted an invitation from Francis Bodden to spend the Christmas holidays with her in Cayman. Traveling on the seaplane from Kingston, she met Otto Hurlston and in two weeks they were engaged. He was one of the few Caymanian men at that time who had not gone to sea.
After spending some time in Haiti and Honduras where her husband continued to run banana estates, she returned to Cayman.
Moving back into the old family house on South Church Street, the Hurlstons opened the business Caymandicraft. He specialised in turtle shell jewelry, and she ran the shop, which they kept open for 40 years. When her husband passed, she sold the property in George Town and moved to South Sound with her daughter and son-in-law Mary and Mike Bowerman.
Ms. Hurlston has two grandchildren, Deborah and David who, with their spouses and her three great granddaughters, Gabriela, Adriana and Abigail, all live in South Sound.
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