A Tale of Grace

Dearest Friends and Family,
This is the Obituary that we have made for Presh. This is an extremely hard task, don’t wish it on anyone. How can any of us describe the fullness of a life? I have not yet got Anni’s done:

Obituary for G. Indira Willey

It is with great sorrow that we announce the passing of our remarkable mother, G. Indira C. Willey on September 26, 2009, at home in Columbia, MD where she had resided for the last 12 years.
Indira, a naturalized US citizen, was born in 1921 in a rural village, Tabaquite, in Trinidad, WI. The example of her life, showed a fearless person, unafraid to take chances and break limitations and barriers in her own mind and conditioning and human society. Her parents were initially indentured labourers, who had left India in the early 20th century to work for British colonial expansionism on plantations and road making.

Possessing a brilliant and exceedingly broad mind, Indira received scholarships to the prestigious Naparima Girls High School, and then to universities in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Canada, pursuing a medical doctor degree, which was aborted. She later attended Columbia University, NY where she earned a Master’s degree in Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat medicine, becoming a Registered Nurse.
She met her husband, the late Dr. C. Francis Willey on a tour of the Hampton Institute, at that time one of the first institutions of higher learning for African Americans in pre-civil-rights USA. Dr. Willey was then part of a professional exchange program of Professors from northern white colleges and universities to ‘coloured’ institutions.

Never forgetting her humble roots, she returned to Trinidad after her studies and built a house for her widowed mother, and started a school for economically disadvantaged children, imparting practical skills and training, home science, and tailoring, among other subjects.

She leaves her son, Jefferson Mohandas Willey, daughter, P. Kamala Willey, and grandson, Linkesh A. Diwan. The Willey’s resided in Chaplin CT for nearly 30 years. At the time of their cross-cultural marriage, Indira was the only Indian woman in the state of Connecticut. Their marriage broke new barriers in human consciousness in the society around them.

Indira served for several years as the Director of Nursing at the Windham Community Memorial Hospital, teaching nursing, and later continued her post-graduate studies, branching into education and psychology. She worked for several years as a guidance counselor in Connecticut schools, and the last 15 years of her working career, at the Alexander Henderson School, in the U.S. Virgin Island of St. Croix.

At the age of 72, she earned a doctorate from the University of Miami, at age 72, possibly the oldest female person on the planet to do so.

These external laurels, were in addition to the responsibilities and duties of being a wife, mother, grandmother, householder, along with numerous civic engagements and activities. She was artistic, skilled in pottery, ceramics, and loved the world of classical music as well,

Acutely aware of her responsibility as a representative of India, Indian culture, as well as Indians from Trinidad and Indians in diaspora to the minds of white society in the US, at a time when people were far less globalized, she advocated internationalism, gender equality, civil rights, environmental protection, and was active in community cultural events for and about India.

A poet as well, she leaves us this beautiful poem, that speaks to rural scenes in India as well as the Caribbean, written a few days before the birth of her late grand-daughter, Anupama M. Diwan (1988-2007).

O Wind

Let the winds blow
so soft all around us
While the bougainvillea blooms and sways
And the Egret sits high on the cow’s spine!

I think of Thee, everywhere:
Among the Trees
Over and under the Sun
Among the Grass
Glittering in the tropic Moonlight

So wondrous and bounteous
Is our world of Thee and me!

G. Indira Willey
on Friday, 8 April, 1988
at the Buccaneer Hotel,
ST. CROIX

Loving You,
Kamala, Anni and Link