shared her post.
Ms Campbell- Beacon of Enterprise!
Time to salute 1 of the 1st Independent Woman of my era from Townhead – Grung Road. The locals called her Ms Campbell & she was the wife of Mass Tat Sinanan. Sorry to say I don’t even know her other name & I am blaming this on the fact that she never resided in my Voting & Population Census areas. She was God-Mother to my breda Amly & this meant she was a person of unblemished & exemplary standards to be afforded such an accolade from my straight laced Parents?
Ms Campbell ran her Business Empire from the back of her family home and I am very sure she did give Owen aka Hurry-Hurry Sinclaire a run for his money. She travelled to town regularly to stock up on supplies to satisfy the needs of her many customer. Anyone who was anyone from far & near went to Ms Campbell for a bit of retail therapy. It was also a case of one’s name being good, so one can trust & pay later.
It was customary for us children to make pilgrimage to visit God-Parents so they can live up to the pledge they made. I usually loved accompanying my breda to visit Ms Campbell not just for the goodies we get to take home, but for other reasons too. One such was the way she would try to call my breda by his 3 names & never succeeded in saying them right, then she’d laugh out loud and say “I don’t know where Mass Ivan got these names from…”
On reflections I am thinking that Ms Campbell may have stammered, but am not sure? Ms Campbell made her mark by doing her own business & never stood by & expected her husband to support her & provided her every needs. I am sure if she had taken the decision to rely on Mass Tat, he would have complied. But she became a role model for other women by becoming 1 of the 1st women to establish herself as an entrepreneur. Ms Campbell became the fore runner for others like Bev McIntosh aka Big John’s wife & Ms Pearl Johnson. They were amongst others who were to become the back bone in supplying us with foodstuff at one time in Jamaica’s history when food did a married to all manner of things before they could get into our pots to feed the hungry masses. God blessed the Entrepreneural Spirits of the likes of Ms Campbell who was one of the beacon amongst STRONG BLACK WOMEN of her times.
