Centenarian Esmie E. Turnbull-Stoutt dies @101
Her family announced her passing and shared that she was the last surviving of ten children born to her parents, William and Amelia Turnbull. Mrs Turnbull-Stoutt came from a long line of centenarians, with her mother living to 101 years and 6 months, sister Ann Eliza Thomas living to 101 years and two months, and her aunt Eliza Turnbull living to 110 years.
She married the late former legislator and Second District Representative Prince Stoutt of Long Bay on September 9, 1952, and is described as having been a supportive wife while he served as a legislator.
Devoted mother
Her family shares that she was an exemplary homemaker and cultivated a household known for love, care, and discipline.
She and her husband raised twelve children: Denzil Clyne, Gladia Fahie, Prince Alford Stoutt, Lucien Stoutt, Wilford Stoutt also known as “Chef Willo”, Berinice Stoutt Lewis, Janice A. Stoutt, Andre Dawson also known as “Shadow”, Shirleen Stoutt, Mac Neil Stoutt, Joycelyn Hoyte, and Carolyn E. Stoutt Igwe.
She is said to have devoted quality time to raise her children and several of her grandchildren, and lived to see the fruits of her many hours of labour.
She is also survived by 28 grandchildren, 44 great-grandchildren, 5 great-grandchildren and the wider Turnbull, Rymer and Hodge families.
Dedicated farmer
Her family shared that she was a lifelong dedicated farmer, having planted and nurtured many fruit trees over the years, with her pineapple garden still existing today.
She also reared pigs, goats, sheep and chickens and worked numerous grounds to provide produce for her family. It was because of her dedication to the agriculture sector that she received various awards from the Department of Agriculture as an active farmer.
Mrs Turnbull-Stoutt lived life led by the principles of kindness, service, and a deep sense of responsibility to her community. She has been described as a person of extraordinary character who lived by the virtues described in Proverbs 31:29: “Many women have done excellently, but she has surpassed them all.”
She celebrated her 100th birthday on April 22, 2025, and it was attended by Governor Daniel Pruce; Premier and Minister of Finance Dr the Honourable Natalio D. Wheatley (R7); Minister for Health and Social Development Hon Vincent O. Wheatley (R9); Minister for Communications and Works Hon Kye M. Rymer (R5), who was also celebrating his birthday; First District Representative Hon Dr Karl Dawson (R1); Hon Melvin M. Turnbull (R2); and Deputy Governor David D. Archer Jr., among others.
Virgin Islands News Online expresses condolences to the family and friends of the late Esmie Estene Turnbull-Stoutt.
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By Tafari Zharr
Esmie “Muddie” Stoutt’s life reflects the courage, hospitality, wisdom, and service of Virgin Islands women whose influence has reached far beyond their homes and communities.
When people remember Esmie “Muddie” Stoutt, they remember more than individual acts of kindness. They remember the warmth of her welcome, the wisdom of her counsel, the rhythm of her speech, and the way she made people feel cared for. Her life invites us to consider how history is made—and how it is preserved.
History does not live only in official documents, public ceremonies, or the names of prominent leaders. It also lives in kitchens, churches, yards, shops, family gatherings, and conversations between generations. It lives in the ordinary acts of care that help families endure and communities remain connected.
To remember Esmie is to honour both an individual life and the wider legacy of Virgin Islands women whose labour, wisdom, and devotion have sustained families, communities, and cultural traditions across generations.
The Gift of Hospitality
Esmie understood that survival was not merely the ability to endure hardship. It also required the courage to nurture, laugh, gather people close, and say:
“Come—eat something before you go.”
That invitation expressed more than hospitality. It reflected a philosophy of life. It affirmed that nourishment is both physical and emotional, that a meal can restore dignity, and that community is built through the repeated acts of care that make people feel seen, valued, and welcome.
In many Caribbean communities, food carries memory. It marks celebration, offers comfort, strengthens relationships, and creates a space for conversation. People gather around meals after worship, during family occasions, in times of mourning, and throughout the ordinary exchanges of daily life.
For Esmie, hospitality was a form of service and a way of preserving culture. Through cooking, conversation, and fellowship, she helped sustain a social world in which generosity was measured not by wealth but by willingness.
A person could offer what was available—a loaf of bread, a plate of food, advice, laughter, or a place to sit—and still create abundance.
This kind of work is often overlooked because it takes place in domestic and informal settings. Yet its importance is considerable. Meals provide continuity within families, create opportunities for intergenerational learning, and reinforce the bonds through which communities endure.
In Esmie’s presence, an ordinary meal could become an act of remembrance. A story could become an inheritance. Even silence could communicate care.
Her authority was quiet but unmistakable. It was present in the steadiness of her hands, the clarity of her counsel, and the cadence of her speech. She could correct someone without diminishing them and give generously without seeking recognition. Her influence did not depend on a public title. It was established through trust.
Language as Cultural Memory
Esmie’s language was another expression of cultural knowledge. Its rhythm reflected the histories of Virgin Islands women—their labour, faith, resilience, sacrifice, humour, and joy.
Her vernacular was neither informal nor inferior. It was a living archive.
Language carries more than information. It also carries relationships, memory, identity, and social values. Proverbs, jokes, affectionate admonitions, and direct observations can communicate complex moral lessons with remarkable precision.
In Esmie’s voice, language did not merely describe the world; it interpreted it.
This matters because Caribbean speech, particularly the speech of working-class women, has sometimes been undervalued when judged only by formal standards of education and linguistic prestige. Such judgments can obscure the intellectual and cultural richness of vernacular expression.
Vernacular speech preserves historical experience, marks belonging, expresses social criticism, and establishes intimacy. Through its rhythms and idioms, it records how people have understood work, family, faith, hardship, responsibility, and hope.
To listen carefully to Esmie is therefore to encounter a form of knowledge. Her speech reflected a worldview shaped by experience and refined through community.
It reminds us that wisdom is not confined to institutions, textbooks, or official archives. It is also found in the everyday places where people work, gather, teach, and care for one another.
The Quiet Leadership of Virgin Islands Women
To honour Esmie is to honour the many Virgin Islands women whose contributions have taken place without ceremony.
They are mothers, daughters, grandmothers, workers, educators, caregivers, entrepreneurs, spiritual guides, and community builders.
Their leadership has not always been exercised from public platforms or through official positions. It has appeared in the preparation of food, the teaching of children, the tending of the sick, the preservation of faith, the settling of disputes, and the creation of opportunity where few resources were available.
This leadership should not be mistaken for mere self-sacrifice. It involved imagination, decision-making, organisation, and moral authority.
Women created systems of support when formal systems were inadequate. They managed households, cultivated relationships, solved practical problems, and helped communities remain connected during times of uncertainty.
Their strength was not defined by hardness. It was determined tenderness—the ability to confront difficulty without surrendering compassion.
These women transformed limited means into abundance through ingenuity and love. They made a way where none appeared to exist, faced uncertainty with composure, and offered generosity even when much was already being asked of them.
Their influence reached beyond the bayside, beyond the belly, and beyond the Caribbean basin. Through migration, memory, education, family connections, and cultural exchange, their values travelled.
Their stories became part of a broader Virgin Islands narrative carried across borders by people who understood that home could be both a place and a set of relationships.
Farewell, Memory, and Belonging
Harry Belafonte’s recording of Irving Burgie’s “Jamaica Farewell,” featured on the 1956 album Calypso, offers a meaningful cultural parallel to the grief of saying farewell to Esmie.
The song’s themes of departure, separation, and attachment to home resonate with the emotions that accompany the loss of a beloved community member.
In Esmie’s case, however, farewell is not an ending. It is an act of remembrance—an acknowledgment that those who nourish a community continue to live through their stories, customs, language, and values.
When someone beloved dies, people do not remember only major events. They remember gestures: the invitation to eat, the familiar expression, the sound of a voice, the advice offered at the right moment, and the sense of belonging created through ordinary encounters.
Such memories are not insignificant. They are among the ways cultural knowledge is carried forward.
Esmie, Dorothy, and the Spirit of the BVI
The lives of Esmie “Muddie” Stoutt and Dorothy Durante reached beyond their personal circumstances and immediate surroundings. Each became part of a larger British Virgin Islands story shaped by memory, migration, culture, and affection.
Esmie’s legacy lives beyond the bayside, while Dorothy’s reaches beyond the wayside. Their stories offer a fuller understanding of the British Virgin Islands—one defined not only by scenery, but also by hospitality, resilience, humour, spirituality, and community.
Their lives demonstrate that a person can be deeply rooted in one place and still speak to the world. They did not need to travel far to leave a lasting mark.
Through courage, generosity, and devotion, they helped others understand the BVI not merely as a destination, but as a people and a culture.
Public representations of Caribbean places can sometimes reduce them to landscapes. The lives of women such as Esmie and Dorothy direct our attention to the people whose work, values, and relationships give those landscapes meaning.
Recognition in the Public Landscape
For these reasons, we respectfully call upon the appropriate authorities to consider meaningful posthumous recognition for Esmie “Muddie” Stoutt.
Such recognition would acknowledge not only her personal contribution but also the wider significance of the lives represented through her.
We also encourage the appropriate civic authorities to consider the proposed designation of an intersection in honour of Dorothy Durante and the proposed naming of a roadway in honour of Esmie “Muddie” Stoutt.
These designations would serve as lasting reminders of Esmie’s grace, courage, hospitality, spiritual guidance, and devoted service. They would also affirm that the work of Virgin Islands women belongs not only in private memory, family photographs, and oral tradition, but within the public landscape of the communities they helped build.
Street names, intersections, monuments, and official honours are not merely symbolic gestures. They shape the way a society remembers itself. They determine whose contributions become visible and whose stories are incorporated into the places through which future generations move.
To inscribe the names of Virgin Islands women into the public landscape is to declare that their work matters—not only to their families, but to the entire society.
This is not a call to honour only two women. It is an appeal to recognise the wider legacy of Virgin Islands and Caribbean women whose labour and leadership helped families survive, communities grow, and traditions endure.
Their work may not always have carried an official title, but its impact has been lasting. Their influence can be measured in the lives they shaped, the values they preserved, and the possibilities they created for others.
“We Still Here”
Esmie remains with us in the courage with which we meet challenges, the hospitality we extend to others, and the laughter that rises even when the road is rough.
Her enduring message is both simple and profound:
“Stand firm, you hear. Life was sometimes hard, yes—but we still here.”
Those words do not deny difficulty. They affirm survival. They acknowledge the roughness of the road while insisting that hardship does not have the final word.
To say “we still here” is to claim continuity, presence, and power. It is to honour those who endured so that others might stand more securely.
It is also to recognise that survival involves memory, care, creativity, and the determination to make life meaningful under difficult circumstances.
And so we remember Esmie “Muddie” Stoutt not only with sorrow at her passing, but with gratitude for the life she lived and the lessons she left behind.
We give thanks for her love, wisdom, humour, hospitality, and the countless ways she taught others how to remain human in challenging times.
Her legacy—and Dorothy Durante’s—lives beyond the baysides and waysides, carried through the lives we touch, the meals we share, the stories we preserve, the language we protect, the communities we build, and the generations yet to come.
To honour Esmie is to honour the women who came before us, the women who stand among us, and the women who will continue to make a way where none appears to exist.
Virgin Islands history has been shaped not only by public figures and official leaders, but also by women whose daily acts of courage, care, creativity, and service made life possible.
Their work—including motherhood, caregiving, teaching, organising, and community service—was often quiet, but it was never small. Their leadership was frequently unrecognised, but it was never insignificant.
Their legacy is not confined to the past.
It remains alive—in us.
“Beyond the Baysides: Remembering Esmie ‘Muddie’ Stoutt and the Enduring Work of Virgin Islands Women” by Tafari Zharr. Copyright © 2026 Tafari Zharr. Used by permission of Tafari Zharr, LLC. All rights reserved.