Clarence and Jean celebrate 71 years of married life

Clarence and Jean Joseph share a combined age of 186 years. She is 90 and he is 96. Nonagenarians! That’s a long word, yet so well suited to their significant length of years of Holy Matrimony.

December 26 is their 71st anniversary: what a privileged blessing to our Catholic Church!

They met at a dance in 1950 when she was just 17 years, he was 23. Parents were cautious in those early ‘steelband’ days since she was coming all the way from Talparo.

Clarence elaborates: “I’m from Newtown, born and bred. I now come from home in Picton Street and who should swing the corner two days later but Jean! ‘What you doing down here?’ It turned out she was staying two houses down the corner from me. Well, it was a divine intervention!” Two years later, they tied the knot.

Clarence and Jean concur that life in the fifties was hard. Jean says: “We didn’t know we were poor. There was nobody to envy because everyone was in the same situation, but we were all happy.”

He was a cabinet maker; she, a seamstress. Clarence actually constructed their marriage bed and a cabinet that still sits proudly in the corner of the living room.

Clarence and Jean extol the virtues of their wonderful neighbours at Savannah West and Sinanan Gardens near Blue Range – their home for 43 years.

Clarence opines: “Trinidad is a beautiful place!” There was such deep emotion in his remark, when Jean, on cue, immediately jumped in with: “Blossom where you are planted.”

She adds: “Life in my parish is beautiful at Our Lady Mother of Mercy.” She used to serve in the choir, was an assistant at Sunday School and even at 90 years still serves as an Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist. “I depend on God for everything and was godly even as a child.”

The Joseph’s children are Terry 70, Colin 68, and Daryl 52 from whom sprang 12 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren. Ever blessed!

How do they see the future for young people in light of so much crime?

Jean admits there have never been instruction manuals for parents and the problem in the country is bad parenting. Technology too means the youth are instructing the parents and this is not good.

“Today we have to encourage young people with more activities and evangelisation. Grandparents are coming to church, but we still have to get the parents to come. We’re on a drive to find out what young people want. You know when they go to university, they lose their faith.”

As our conversation continues, it becomes clear that it is really the witness of their lives together where the solution is to be found.

Clarence boldly proclaims: “We love each other to death” while Jean reflects: “I can’t even remember an argument between us.” Clarence confesses that he always loved nice things, but he knows how to save and to be satisfied.

For Jean, contentment is a foundational virtue. It’s all about love. Here’s wishing Jean and Clarence Joseph the vista of a glorious sunset as they journey to Christ.