Jamaican Irlene Jones-Brathwaite Saturday, Dec. 2 night celebrated her 60th birthday with a gala bash in the Fellowship Hall at Fenimore Street United Methodist Church (FSUMC) in Brooklyn, describing the attainment of the significant milestone as “a blessing.”
“Sixty years is a blessing,” Jones-Brathwaite, a Brooklyn resident and FSUMC member, told Caribbean Life a day after family and church members, and friends and supporters celebrated and paid tribute to her at the gala celebration.
“Thank God, I do not have any major illnesses,” she said. “Yes, I get some aches sometimes. I’m feeling 20 years in a 60-year-old body.”
In their tributes, patrons described Jones-Brathwaite – a member of FSUMC’s United Voices of Praise (UVOP), Gospel Chorus, Combined Choir, and Praise and Worship Team – as a song bird, God-fearing, loving, kind, sweet, beautiful, honest, good-natured and very strong, among other superlatives.
“God is good! She’s 60, but she looks like 16,” said the DJ before dropping “She’s Royal,” as patrons serenaded Jones-Brathwaite.
“You’re my sweetest niece,” Yvonne Crosby, Jones-Brathwaite’s aunt, who trekked from the Bronx, told her. “We’ve been together for 60 years. I wish you all the best.”
Joylyn Walker, who lived across the street from Jones-Brathwaite in St. Andrew, Jamaica, said Jones-Brathwaite was always willing to share food, among other things.
“She always had food over there,” she said, referring to back home. “I love you. Continue your Christian work.”
Then, she told patrons that Jones-Brathwaite “grew her children with love.”
Another patron and friend, whose name was given only as Yvonne, described Jones-Brathwaite as “a beautiful song bird.”
“I wish you love for 60 years,” she said. “God bless you. Get up and dance.”
Annette “Nettie” McEwen, a friend, who’s known Jones-Brathwaite for some time, said she was “looking good,” wishing her “all the best.”
Dianne Brown, the Jamaican-born chair of the Higher Education Scholarship Fund Committee at FSUMC, said Jones-Brathwaite was “lovely, reliable and ‘firey’”.
“She’s a really good friend,” she said. “Heart-to-heart, I love her.
“She loves her singing; she loves her church,” Brown added. “You have my support in everything you do.”
Jones-Brathwaite’s cousin, Mark Little, who served as Master of Ceremonies, said Jones-Brathwaite was “so honest.”
“She’s such a good person, such a good heart,” said Little, also a native of St. Andrew, Jamaica, who currently resides in East Hartford, Conn.
Min. Bernice Walker, a native of St. Kitts, the larger of the twin-island federation of St. Kitts and Nevis, said she and Jones-Brathwaite’s birthdays was actually last Wednesday.
“She knows me, and she knows my ways,” said Walker, a lay speaker at FSUMC. “I’m thankful for Irlene. I love her.
“God bless her and her children,” she added. “You have a good mother (turning to Jones-Brathwaite’s two sons)”.
Belizean-born Barbara Moody, chair of FSUMC’s Worship Committee and director of FSUMC’s Chancel Choir, said she and Jones-Brathwaite connected from “the get-go.”
“You just see that person that’s drawn to you, and you’re drawn to them,” she said. “We just have a good relationship.
“I just wish you a happy birthday,” she added. “Your boys are just close to you.”
After wishing Jones-Brathwaite “a very happy birthday,” Min. Cynthia Grant – who was born in Aruba to Vincentian parents, chairs FSUMC’s Pastor-Parish Relations Committee and is a member of the Chancel Choir – said, in jest: “When you reach 60, and your next birthday comes, you age down.”
Milton Walker, who was Jones-Brathwaite’s neighbor in Jamaica, told Jones-Braithwaite: “You’re clear proof that age is a number. I wish you happy birthday and many more to come.”
Jones-Brathwaite’s elder son, Tariq, 27, said “60 years is a long time.”
“Everything you teach me makes sense,” he said, turning to his mother. “No matter what, she’s one call away.
“Everybody in here, we share a special moment,” he added. “We have a memory we can recall. I appreciate you guys for keeping me level-headed.
“I love you,” Tariq told his mother.”
Younger son, Donté, 20, said he has “nothing but respect for my mother.”
Neev Shah, 3, who Jones-Brathwaite baby-sits, told Jones-Brathwaite, to loud applause: “I love you.”
Jones-Brathwaite, who was born in St. Andrew, Jamaica, said she is the only child of Calvin and Joan Jones.
In Jamaica, she said she attended Mission House basic school, Providence Primary and Dunrobin High School.
After graduating from high school, Jones-Brathwaite said she explored photolithography, or printing, fell “in love with it”, but went on, after five years, to work at the National Commercial Bank in St. Andrew, Jamaica, for nine years.
During that time, Jones-Brathwaite said her first son was born in 1996.
In 2003, two years after migrating to New York, Jones-Brathwaite said she gave birth to her second son.
“Shortly thereafter, I became a single mother, raising my two boys,” Jones-Brathwaite told Caribbean Life. “Living in the USA has brought a better quality of life – more opportunities for my sons and myself.
“My boys are all grown up,” she added. “I love to sing praises unto God. It’s because of His grace and mercy why I’m here today.”
