Centenarian James Alfred Taylor has died
Mr James Alfred Taylor died on January 18, 2015 at his Purcell Estate residence. Photo: VINO/File
Mr James A. Taylor and two of his four children Patricia E. Gilbert and Burnell Mussenden on the occasion of his 100th birthday celebrated on March 24, 2013. Photo: VINO/File
Many persons in the Percell Estate neighbourhood and the wider territory will remember Mr Taylor. Photo:VINO/File
PURCELL, Tortola, VI - About two months shy of his 102nd birth anniversary, one of the Virgin Island’s centenarians James Alfred Taylor has died. This news site has confirmed this information with several of his close relatives and, according to one cousin, “He is now in a better place, life well lived”.
It was on March 24, 2013 that this news site had featured the celebration of Mr Taylor’s 100th birthday at his Purcell Estate home when he had said that while he was thankful to God for being alive at the age of 100, he had no wish for longer years.
“I am just taking it as it comes, I wouldn’t say I want to go for another year or two or three if the father choose to give me health and strength to go more well that is it but if not to him be the glory for what he has done for me,” he had said to this news site.
He had also said that trusting in God was his main focus. Mr Taylor had said that since migrating to the Virgin Islands in the 1940s from St. Thomas, USVI, he spent his life working in the carpentry field and being involved in sports, especially volley ball and cricket.
His advice to others at that time was to do whatever one had to do with modesty. One of his daughters had told this new site that he was the man who chose to remember what he wanted to forgot what he wanted to, something that was felt to have contributed to his long life.
This news site understands that Mr Taylor was not of good health periodically over the past year and had been hospitalised on occasions before dying quietly at home on January 18, 2015.
James Alfred Taylor was born on the island of St Kitts on March 24, 1913. He came to the Virgin Islands as a young man in 1941 and has resided here ever since. Mr Taylor grew up in Sandy Point. He attended a boys’ school in Basseterre and also the St Paul’s School for boys and girls. He was a skilled carpenter and joiner and loved making fine furniture. He learned his trade as an apprentice under Mr Martimer Warner in St. Kitts. He left St Kitts by Motor Launch, which sailed to Charlotte Amalie.
Prior to settling on Tortola, he had lived in St Thomas, United States Virgin Islands where he worked for a short time. Having heard that carpenters were needed in Tortola, he came to the island to explore the possibilities of working here. Mr Taylor was married twice in his lifetime, first to Winnifred Olivia Warner in 1938. She died in 1981. Then at age 78, in 1991 he married Linnett Veronica Ramcharran. They are now divorced.
None of his four children, two boys, two girls, were born on Tortola. However, one was born in St Thomas. All his siblings had passed on.
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