'She is very blessed' - Maud Campbell Richards reaches 105

Track & field prodigy Christopher Taylor is very excited to have a relative who is 105 not out. The athlete is one of 58 great-grandchildren for Maud Campbell Richards, a resident of Ewarton St Catherine.

"She is very blessed," Taylor said after he joined dozens of relatives at a birthday party for the centenarian last Saturday.

"This shows the blessings that is in the family. The blessing that God has given her is because of the good things she has done and continues to do," said Taylor, a Calabar High School standout.

Campbell Richards has six children two boys and four girls the oldest 77 and the youngest 68. She also has 27 grandchildren.

Born on August 13, 1913, in Mount Rosser, Richards attended Mount Rosser Elementary School before becoming a railway worker. Her tasks, while working with the railway company, included breaking stones to help hold the rails in place.

She is an ardent Christian who is a member of the Ewarton Gospel Hall Church, where she had been baptised on July 28, 1940.

GOD PROVIDES

"A God a keep me, a nuh me a keep myself, God provide for me every day," she said.

"Mi used to go church every Sunday, but since mi can't walk mi nuh go. Mi love mi God and mi love church, everything good come from God," the centenarian added.

Campbell Richards has survived many personal challenges in her life, foremost among them the death of her husband, Nathan Richards, in 1961, leaving her with six children to care for.

Morjorie Richards, the eldest daughter, described her mother as a champion who has taught her children the vitures of honesty and integrity.

"Even though we grew up, for most part, without a father, my mother never buckle under the stress of raising the six of us. She would do housework and roadwork to take care of us," she said.