Mathias McDonald tells us how to live to be 110: Don't ramp wid food!

- By Dr Mike Sutton - 

This first blog post on my wife's family blogspot is about her, Elaine Sutton's (ne Johnson) grandfather, Mathias McDonald. He was my youngest daughter's - Eleena's, - great grandfather.  He lived to be 110 years old. She met him in Jamaica when she was three years old and he 108. I remember Eleena went outside and picked him a flower from the garden. He laughed heartily and kissed her cheek.

One of his tips for a long life is not to "ramp" (don't amuse yourself / don't play) with food. I think he was saying that one should eat a plain and simple diet and eat it heartily. But there is more here. Eleena's great grandfather had a very hard start in life. His mother took up with a lover and just gave him away! Whatever the emotional effect may have been, little Mathias set about working from the age of nine years. Eventually, he literally 'bought the farm' and lived and practiced the philosophy of both social and ecological sustainability. You could say he pulled himself up by his bootstraps - except I doubt he had any shoes, never mind boots, for quite a while.

I started this blog because our daughter Eleena wanted to know about her great grandfather and other relatives. A little work on Google unearthed this news story and some photographs of her great grandfather in Jamaica when he was 109 and making the headlines.

Matthias McDonald, aged 109 years. On his farm
in Jamaica

The Jamaica Observer article, written by DONNA HUSSEY-WHYTE on Sunday March 10th 2013 hd this to say

TODAY marks the 109th year of Mathias McDonald's life.

His birth certificate cannot be found, but the plaque hanging on the wall beside his bed states that his date of birth is March 10, 1904, and his expired national identification card corroborates this date.

The centenarian attended school only seven days in his entire life, but choosing the life of a farmer may be the key to his many years on this Earth.

As such, to this day, McDonald, popularly known in his community of Smithville, Clarendon, as 'Brother Man', is happy to not only still be among the living, but to be healthy, strong and still doing what he does best -- farming.

"I have no regret," McDonald responded when the Jamaica Observer's question was loudly repeated to him by a visiting church sister Ardene Russell on Friday.

"If I say I have any regret, I would be charged by the Lord," McDonald added. "For is He who is keeping me. Is not me keeping myself. I don't must go to my bed and live to see daylight. Is Him keeping me, whether in the night, in the day -- is Him keeping me. So all I have to do is give Him thanks for his goodness to me."

McDonald fathered 10 children, two of whom predeceased him. His youngest child is now 67 and the eldest still living offspring is 84. The eldest of the lot died two years ago at the age of 86.

While he could not recall what year he got married, he said his wife died 22 years ago. His daughter later confirmed that she had died at the age of 81.

Many would expect that at 109 McDonald would be bedridden and dealing with various ailments, but this is not the case, as the Sunday Observer team watched as McDonald dragged on his water boots and headed out for his farm behind his house and tended to his banana trees, coffee and other produce as he does every morning.

"Every day him in the bush doing something, whether dig up banana, plant coffee, something," said Pauline Fearon, who has been cooking for McDonald for the past 20 years.

"Him not leaving out the cultivation. Every day him go to the field and spend a hour or so, and then go back inside. Right now, if you give him money him jump on taxi and go May Pen Market to buy what him want and come back," she said. "Yes, him strong, man."

The produce from McDonald's farm goes towards his children, most of whom visit him on a regular basis, while his son who resides in England ensures that he receives a monthly allowance. Other produce supplements his own meals or his neighbours.

Though McDonald lives on his own, Fearon, who lives a short distance away, said he is in need of nothing.

Living alone is his choice, his daughter, 70-year-old Cotilda Goffe explained in a telephone conversation following the visit.

"He doesn't want to live with us because he said up there (Smithville) is cool and he is healthy," she explained. "We just go there and take care of him."

She described her father as a "real, real good father".

"He cares for his family and is a hard worker," Goffe told the Observer. "Him don't smoke, him don't drink, nothing like that. The strongest thing he will drink is a little wine once in awhile," she said. "His memory is very, very good. He doesn't have Alzheimer's or anything."

Fearon, who is also McDonald's cousin, was at his home along with church brethren and friends, Pastor Nicholas Russell, Racquel Rose-Hinds, Patricia Walters, and Ardene Russell. They were cracking up from jokes being told to them by the chirpy senior, who took great pleasure in talking about his childhood.

He recalled at the age of nine, his mother found a man she loved, and took him out of class so he could stay with his four younger siblings and she could be free to see her lover. That was his last day as a student and his first as a stand-in parent for his absentee mother.

"I only went to school for seven days. Seven days in my entire life, because on the seventh day my mother came to the school and took me out and I never went back," he recalled. "She seh her husband send call her, so she wanted me to stay with the little ones dem 'til she come back. But it wasn't so. A go she a go home to her husband in Milk River. That was 1913. Is four smaller ones at the time. I stayed with them alone for a long time -- until 1914," he said.

"There was a man from St Elizabeth come married her. So all her mind was on the man. She never business wid we. So she carry me to one man and give me weh. She carry me to her uncle and leave mi. Give she give me weh."

He spent six weeks there before returning home.

Because he felt his mother did not care much for her children, McDonald left her home to live with his aunt in Peace River, another district in Clarendon. He stayed for nine years, selling ground produce for her in the May Pen Market.

"It was good living with her, as far as how good living was concerned," he laughed.

McDonald said he never took part in regular games, like other young boys his age did, nor was he the going-out type. In fact, he said he'll "never allow night dew to fall on him".

"I never stay out. As night come mi gone to bed. Dew never catch mi a road. Sometimes all four different dance would be going on and I didn't go to none. Mi nuh do nuh sporting. Mi just work," he said. "Sometimes mi go mi bed before night come. Mi never do any sporting. No matter how the sport deh near mi yard mi nuh go deh."

He said he loves to eat and didn't "ramp wid food".

"Mi eat good man! Now that mi nuh joke wid!" he said in his humourous fashion. "Mi body well fed!"

He said he loves mutton and would buy up to 10 lbs at a time.

"A dem deh nyamming mi love," he said as everyone around him laughed.

On Sunday mornings, McDonald, who is a member of the Pentecostal Lighthouse Apostolic church, sometimes journeys the one mile to the church on foot after traversing the hilly footpath that leads to his home. He can also be seen from time to time heading to the neighbourhood standpipe with a five litre bottle to fetch water.

The centenarian encouraged young persons to be good to each other as this could lengthen their days in this world.

"Keep yourself neutral among your brother and sisters. Live good with everybody because the Lord create us to live good with one another, for that is how I live," he said. "Me and nobody don't have nuh talking. Nuh body don't trouble me, I don't trouble anybody. I prefer to give a person things more than a person to give me. I don't love freeness. That would be my advice."

Mathias McDonald (centre), who is celebrating his 109th birthday. Visited by friends and church brethren at his Smithville, Clarendon, home on Friday. (L-R) Millicent Anderson; Racquel Rose-Hinds, pastor of Pentecostal Lighthouse Apostolic; Nicholas Russell; Pauline Fearon; Ardene Russell; and Patricia Walters.

~~~

First Sunday Observer centenarian goes home at 110

BY DONNA HUSSEY-WHYTE Sunday Observer staff reporter 

Sunday, September 21, 2014  

Mathias McDonald's 

thanksgiving day in Jamaica

Cotilda Goffe paying tribute to her father Mathias, McDonald, 110, at his service of thanksgiving (funeral) last Wednesday.

ON March 10, 2013, the Sunday Observer kicked off its centenarian series '100 not out' by featuring 109-year-old Mathias McDonald, who was still tilling his farm and briskly moving about at the time.

But on Wednesday, McDonald was laid to rest after passing away peacefully in his sleep at age 110 years and five months.

But it wasn't sadness that greeted congregants at the Pentecost Light House Church in Smithville, Clarendon, last Wednesday, but a grand celebration.

"Brother Man got long life because God honour him with long life," Elder Oliver Montgomery told the congregation in a tribute.

We are happy for the amount of people here today, because now you walk down the street is like people don't like to see old people. But whatsoever a man sow that shall he also reap. The best thing he did was when he yielded his life to the Lord," Montgomery said

McDonald was baptised on his 100th birthday.

Montgomery said that, at 110, McDonald had been through all the changes of life.

"He used to work six pence per day. In those times you didn't have car, truck, tractor, so anywhere you going you had to walk on foot. And when you reach Kingston you see something call the tram car. So he has lived to see good days," the church elder said. "But this man had to live long because the Bible says children obey your parents and it goes on to say honour you mother and father that your days may be long upon the land. He had to take up the responsibility of his father by working and taking care of him."

McDonald, who had 12 children, four of whom predeceased him, was described as an outstanding man that none who knew him will forget.

One family member noted that at his age McDonald never used diapers, did not use oxygen, had no ailments, and was never hospitalised.

Michael Stern, former Member of Parliament for Clarendon North West and a friend of the family said that good fruits were born from McDonald, as it was not just the food that persons eat that gives them strength but also the spiritual life that one lives.

In his sermon, Pastor Robert McHugh, in speaking on the topic 'Living in expectancy' said he was pleasantly surprised when he met McDonald two years ago, and upon visiting his house saw a pair of water boots and machete at the doorway only to find out that the centenarian was still an active farmer and a man who lived a simple life.

"He lived simply, expecting to move on. When you went to his house you saw his table, his suitcase, his boots and his machete, he didn't burden himself," McHugh said. "You cannot burden yourself when you are expecting to move on, because the same things that you worry about that are temporal, when you reach the stage when you can't get up - the fridge, the TV, etc — they won't matter to you. Everything now becomes a burden. So you got to live expecting God to take you at any time, because if you live expecting, you will live according to his word," he said. "You don't normally see such a crowd when one reaches a certain age, because persons tend to forget them, but the life he lived and whom he touched speaks for him. We too can follow his footstep. Don't live for yourself, live for others. The main thing is to live so that you can live again," the Reverend said.

When the Sunday Observer visited McDonald last year he informed the team that he had no regrets and was thankful for every day he woke up to find himself alive.

"If I say I have any regret, I would be charged by the Lord," McDonald said then. "For is He who is keeping me. Is not me keeping myself. I don't must go to my bed and live to see daylight. Is Him keeping me, whether in the night, in the day is Him keeping me. So all I have to do is give Him thanks for his goodness to me."

He explained too that he never allowed 'night dew' to fall on him.

"I never stay out. As night come mi gone to bed. Dew never catch mi ah road. Sometimes all four different dance would be going on and I didn't go to none. Mi nuh do nuh sporting. Mi just work. Sometimes mi go mi bed before night come. No matter how the sport deh near mi yard mi nuh go deh."

He loved to eat and didn't 'ramp wid food', the church was told.

Back then he encouraged young people to be good to each other as this could lengthen their days in this world.

"Keep yourself neutral among your brother and sisters. Live good with everybody, because the Lord create us to live good with one another, for that is how I live," he said.

"Me and nobody don't have nuh talking. Nobody don't trouble me, I don't trouble anybody. I prefer to give a person things more than a person to give me. I don't love freeness. That would be my advice."

He was buried at the St Paul's Anglican Church Cemetery in Cedars, Mocho, Clarendon. He leaves behind eight children, 63 grandchildren, 165 great grandchildren, 51 great great grandchildren and one brother.

Ruby McDonald in a rejoicing spirit as she sings in honour of her father-in-law, Mathias McDonald, at the service of thanksgiving held at the Pentecost Light House Church in Smithville, Clarendon, on Wednesday.

Duheny McDonald laying flowers on the casket of his father Mathias, McDonald, 110, at his thanksgiving service.

Duheny McDonald (right), son of deceased 110-year-old Mathias McDonald, converses with (from left) his brother Joselyn; Pastor Robert McHugh; former MP Michael Stern; and his older brother Arthur McDonald. 

(PHOTOS: GARFIELD ROBINSON)