100 AND GOING STRONG

She moves about with sprightliness and agility. You’re left surprised when she tells you her age.“I’m 100, you know,” Pearl Stern said beaming with pride. “I feel just the same as usual; every now and again I have a little pain and so, but I don’t worry about it because you know that you have to have pain when you reach a certain age.”

You can see the excitement and joy on her face as she lists the many activities she is still involved in despite her age.

“I still cook my own food for myself,” the centenarian boasted, “I look after my house. I don’t really do the big tidying and all that, I have somebody come in and do that.”

“If I am to go anywhere, once I have a drive, I’m gone. I go to church every Sunday. I go to the St Andrew Parish Church (in Half-Way-Tree). I am there every Sunday; I have a friend that takes me,” Stern told the Jamaica Observer.

“I have a club that I joined — REACH Club. Right now I haven’t been going very often; once in a while I go, but that was so lovely to go on a Saturday,” she continued. “If I am invited anywhere, I am gone. They used to have a lot of tea parties at one time, so all of that I would go and I’d go to luncheons or anything like that.”

Her friend, and retired doctor, 93-year-old Hazel Bennett, noted Stern’s willingness to go out.

“I’ll tell you she is very game, there was a time if I am going out…and I am passing and I say, ‘What are you doing? I am going to Liguanea or I am going to MegaMart or I am going to so and so, would you like to come?’ And she is out like a flash,” Bennett recounted.
When she is not out on the road, the centenarian is often at home entertaining guests.

“She is a great entertainer, so as soon as people enter [her home] she says: ‘Are you hungry, would you like some lunch, would you like some things?’. And she is preparing and setting them up every time, and I know that I am a beneficiary of that too,” Bennett said.

“Members of her family are here every day, seven days a week. They have always been here with her, so although she lives alone she isn’t really alone,” added Bennett.

Bennett lauded Stern’s skills in the kitchen.

“She says she is not a cook, but she is an absolutely great cook and whenever she serves up anything it is perfectly laid out, perfectly arranged. You know you have been invited to dine, even if it is lunch. She is always nice and proper,” Bennett told the Sunday Observer.

“I always give people my best and the best of what I have.”

The exceptional host, was invited and hosted by the Queen in her early seventies at the Queen’s Garden Tea Party held at Buckingham Palace, London.

Stern, who was most elated about the experience, has framed the invitation and mounted it on the wall of her living room for posterity.

She wasted no time in showing the Sunday Observer the photo beneath the invitation of her son, Colonel Anthony Stern, being knighted by the Queen.

“There is an invitation that came from Buckingham Palace for me to go to the tea party. Myself and my sister — she died last year — Winsome, and we went. We went and stayed with my son who was in England then. We had a beautiful time,” she said of the party.

“It was 1988. It was really an experience, really something.”

According to www.royal.uk, the Queen welcomes over 30,000 guests to a relaxed afternoon in the Gardens of the Buckingham Palace or the Palace of Holyroodhouse, in Scotland each year. This is a means through which the Queen speaks to a broad range of people from all walks of life, all of whom have made a positive impact in their community. Historically, garden parties took the place of presentation parties attended by debutantes, and have evolved into a way of recognising and rewarding public service. Invitees are nominated by government and non-government organisations, including the church and other faiths.

The mother of three was described as a warm and friendly individual who is “very with it at 100”.

Though she doesn’t have a special diet, the centenarian admits that she “eats sensibly”.

“I eat…lots of fruits, I love fruits, especially mangoes. I love mangoes man; mangoes are my favourite. I love any kind, but especially the East Indian. I just love that one,” she told the Sunday Observer.

Stern marked her tremendous feat on April 18. It was, however, celebrated on the 15th at a party put on by relatives at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel in new Kingston.