Features

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

By WANDEKA GAYLE, Staff Reporter

Frederick, 70 and Shirley Howe, 67 at their home in Palmer's Cross, Clarendon - Junior Dowie

SHE MET HIM during a tumultuous time in her life as a domestic helper in her 20s. But 67-year-old Shirley Thomas of Palmer's Cross, Clarendon, is happy she held unto love with husband, Frederick Howe, 70, for 42 years.

The two were thrown together in the same household, Frederick as the carpenter of Collington District, Clarendon and Shirley, as a helper from Mocho, Clarendon.

Shirley had held dreams of going to England to work but her applications were constantly being turned down.

To make matters worse, she had a five-month old baby boy, Neville Evans, to take care of whose father had disappeared shortly after his birth.

Yet, when she met Frederick, her luck began to change. She just did not know it yet.

"We just started to talk together," she said.

Frederick, looking through the wide lenses of his glasses, said with a smile, "And she looked good after having a child. She was stout and fat," he said.

Friendship

They saw the importance of nurturing a good friendship and would find every opportunity to converse while working under the same roof in Free Town.

Their friendship bloomed into love and they were married at the United Church in Four Paths, Clarendon on June 9, 1962.

The early years of marriage were tough for the young couple, they recall.

Frederick said that he worked at the Jamalco Clarendon Aluminium Works in the maintenance department before starting his own cabinet business.

Shirley continued to work as a helper. "It was hard to cope, because of money worries but we had to carry on," Shirley said, adding that she was suffering from diabetes and hypertension.

Frederick bought a plot of land in Palmer's Cross in the 1970s and the small family took root.

But with all the trials, Shirley said she was happy for one thing ­ that Frederick had accepted her son as his own. They had three girls together.

What kept them going for so many years? "I don't like to be up and down and running around, I just like to stick to the evil that I know," Shirley said laughingly.

"There is no evil in this marriage," Frederick countered with a laugh, then sobering he added, "If you plan how to live by God's laws, you will have a happy life."

The couple worships at the New Testament Church of God in their community and are active members.