103 and going strong Family celebrates Nellie Pennycooke’s remarkable journey

When Nellie Pennycooke celebrated her 100th birthday in 2023, it was more than a milestone. For her family, it was the answer to years of prayers following a medical emergency that once left them fearing the worst.

Now 103, the retired postmistress and mother of seven remains in remarkably good health, but daughter Joan Pennycooke-Perry remembers vividly the heart attack her mother suffered in November 2006 at age 83 that left them worried.

“November 6, 2006, about 3 a.m., I only heard my name being called, and by the time I moved to her room, I saw her falling to the ground,” Pennycooke-Perry recalled.

Recognising that something was seriously wrong, she sprang into action, rushing her mother on the roughly 40-kilometre journey from Old Harbour, St Catherine, to the University Hospital of the West Indies in St Andrew.

“It took me less than half an hour to reach the University Hospital of the West Indies from Old Harbour. By the time we got to the hospital, she was navy blue,” she recalled.

Pennycooke survived the ordeal. After her recovery, the family began looking ahead to a goal that once seemed uncertain, reaching age 100.

“At the start of 2023, every day I got nervous. Every day I was praying, ‘Lord, another day, another day’, and prayed that it happened,” Pennycooke-Perry said.

As October 7 approached, excitement built throughout the family. “The night before, you would have believed it was New Year’s Eve, because all the grandchildren were here with one big excitement and [noise makers] when it struck midnight. We were all excited for her reaching 100,” she said.

Three years later, Pennycooke is still going strong.

“Apart from the ache and pain, mi no feel no way. Mi just can’t believe it. I feel just ordinary,” she said.

The family is now setting its sights on another landmark birthday.

“If the Lord grants it, there will be an even larger birthday celebration,” Pennycooke-Perry said of plans for her mother’s 105th birthday. “At this point, she is in perfect health. Perfect health,” she noted.

Pennycooke was born on October 7, 1923 in Negril, Westmoreland, to parents Nathaniel and Bernice Samuels. She credits the abundance of fish she ate in the seaside town for her long life.

She is the eldest of eight children and was affectionately called ‘Pearl’ as a child.

She left school as a teenager to help care for her younger siblings and learnt sewing from an aunt. She later joined the postal service in Hanover at age 19, before meeting her husband, Frederick Pennycooke, a police officer. Together they had seven children – June, Judith, Johnet, Jerome, Jennifer, Josette and Joan.

The family moved across Jamaica as her husband was transferred to different police divisions and stations. Following his death in 1969, she returned to the postal services and was transferred to Old Harbour Bay in 1971, where she worked until her retirement in 1983 at age 60.