Zepherine Persaud, centre, who has died at the age of 106
THE family of Zepherine Persaud have paid tribute to her love of life, strength and determination after she died at the age of 106.
Guyana-born Zepherine, known as Zeph, died on December 29 – just days after spending Christmas surrounded by her loving family.
Zeph lived with daughter Irma Bacchus, 80, in Bourne Road, who said she was convinced her mother would see in her 107th birthday in August because she was so fighting fit.
However, her health deteriorated over the past six months and she began to suffer serious pressure sores.
Irma said: “I am going to miss her in a strange way, because I am glad she is no longer in any pain, and of course she was 106, she had a very good life.
“But I didn’t want to see her suffer anymore so I said dear God, please take her and he did.”
“She was an organised woman and she had organised her funeral right down to the very small things, including all the refreshments for everybody, that is just what she was like.
“People have been saying to me I will live to 110, it’s in my genes, but I don’t think I want that. Mum was always so active and as she got in to her 100s, I could see the frustration in her when she couldn’t do the things she used to do.
“Mum had a really good life though, she was a serious person but in a nice way, she kept herself together, she got married young, had her children and looked after them well.
“She never smoked or drank, she was in the Guides for years and she was Brown Owl with the Brownies until she was about 60.”
Zepherine was born in 1905 in Malali, Guyana, the year farm workers revolted against working conditions under the British colonialists when the country was known as British Guiana.
She had two children, four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Irma said: “When my father died at the age of 76, he told me to look after her, which of course I did. I would never have paid for her to be in a home when I could care for her myself.
“She did so well, she had a really good sense of humour and her carers loved her, she had little nicknames for everybody. On Christmas Day, the grandchildren sat with her a lot and we took her up some ice-cream.”
http://www.swindonadvertiser.c...o_beloved_Zepherine/