 Eugene Sinclaire Ursula Mae Foggo Simon, but much prefer to be called just plain "Jean." My education started in a small, one-room schoolhouse in the back of St. Luke's AME Church, on the island of St. David's, instituted by a man named Hilton "Hilly" Richardson. We learned the basic RRR, but sang times tables, had awesome spelling contests and practised cursive writing. At recess, we climbed trees, played marbles, spin the bottle and danced around a maypole.
After school and homework, which always came first, we swan, fished, cleaned the fish, assisted with the weaving of fish nets, helped with the fishing and pilot boats, went home to cook the fish and to eat together as a family unit. My grandparents always gave me freedom to express myself, so at a very early age, I made personal choices of how my life was going to be. I became a Brownie, a Girl Guide and a Sea Ranger. We marched in parades and met the Queen of England in 1953 when she made her Coronation visit to Bermuda. I went to church, was confirmed at age 12, sang in the choir, and learned to love and respect my family and friends. I do not remember fighting or sibling rivalry. We were blessed to live in such a paradise. Crime was almost virtually unheard of. I remember hearing about someone stealing one of my grandmother's chickens, but no more than that. We had too much fun together to think of doing anything other than enjoying each others company. I was from Utopia, and I have never forgotten my roots.  St. David's Island, most easterly of the Bermuda's, originally had an area of 510 acres and was largely covered with cedars and palmetto, with mangroves on the rocky shores. It has been suggested that it was so named by Welshmen who were among the immigrants who arrived on the "Plough" in 1612 and so named in honour of the Patron Saint of Wales. It has a unique history of it's very own. Among those who settled here in slavery, or by choice included the North American Pequot Indians, Mic Mac Indians, Oswego Indians, Carib Indians, and Mohican Indians. Some were held in bondage until 1645 at which time they were liberated on the grounds that they were free-born. This is my lineage. These were my forefathers. A descendant of the American Indians and the Irish, Welsh, and British who had settled. Whaling was the the first occupation of the St. David's Islanders who felt most at home on the sea earning a living as pilots, sailors, fishermen, privateers, smugglers, pirates, wreckers, and blockage runners. The whaling companies of the 17th and 18th centuries, centred on St. David's and whale oil was used for lamps over 100 years. By the 19th century there were 450 inhabitants. Descendants
of the original 38 families. St. David's was considered a separate community with each householder dependent upon his own boat for transportation and children learned how to row a boat as soon as we could talk. The tapestry of my forefathers was deeply ingrained in me. I was respectful of the sea, its habitants, the earth and the fullness thereof. I had roots to a family who for centuries had habituated St. David's island. We were natives and decedents of some of the early settlers.
On St. David's no one family had more that the other. If someone gained more through hard work, we would share with other less fortunate. We were owners of land, but did not know its value until later years. By then it was sold or taken by the Bermuda Government to lease to the United States as base lands. By the end of the Great Wars 259 acres of St. David's Island was leased to the United States which has been determined by the debt incurred by Great Britain and we had no other choice than to live in close proximity to each other. We were nomads at this point in our lives. If the Bermuda Government said to our elders to move further east, we moved. Whole families were uprooted. We learned essential humility for the good of our country. Our diet consisted of fish, herbs, potatoes, cabbage, carrots, cassava, peanuts, bananas, figs, alexander root, watermelons, oranges, pomegranate, surinam cherries, sugar apple, chicken, milk from our goats or cows, home baked bread, sea turtle, eel, conch, suck rock and fish chowder. Our food came from our own gardens, and from bounty of fish and shell food in the surrounding ocean. An independent and determined people; hardy and strong in stature. This is my Bermuda. Go into the crooks and crannies of the island and seek out the true Bermudian. The "locals". These are the people who can share the real stories with you of this island. Our background is fascinating because we were solely responsible for our livelihood. We fished, swam, planted gardens, built boats, and made fishing nets. We constructed our own homes, improvised, made do, did our own doctoring, made medicines, knitted, designed and hand-sewed our own clothing. We walked. We had no transportation except for boats, and boats could not take us everywhere. There are many families with much the same background. A proud history that they could share just as I have chosen to do, but this is my story. The story of the Foggo's, Fox's, Pitcher's, Lamb's, Burchall's, Minor's and etc., and the people I have met along the way. Later I went on to Howard Academy, a high school that is now closed, but was made famous by its many graduates and its teaching methods. We were way ahead of most young people our ages. We were not monetarily rich, but we were rich in dignity and character. Most of the people I want to introduce to you came from this era in my life. The history of this school is being written by a former student, Roosevelt Brown. Upon finishing Howard Academy, I applied for a Bermuda Government scholarship and went on to study at Wilberforce University and the Oberlin School of Commerce. I married in 1959 to a man from Ohio whom I had met in college, worked for the Ford Motor Company, Gilford Instruments Laboratories, and the City of Oberlin, Ohio as its Clerk of Council/City Clerk, had one son, later divorced in 1969, and returned to Bermuda in the early 1980's. I secured a job at Bermuda College, Faculty of Arts & Science, as secretary to the Dean, Dr. George Cook and was also assigned the duties as co-ordinator for Queen's University (Canada) in Bermuda. I also started three businesses and managed them while still working at Bermuda College. Why did I work so hard? What else did I know? I had always worked hard. It was just inbred in me. There was so much to learn , and I always had a thirst for education. As an employee of Bermuda College, I was able to attend any course I wanted to, free of charge, except for books, and I pursued as many courses as I could, including the Institute of Supervisory Management, bartending, the travel industry, ceramics, computers, cooking. This is where I gained a healthy respect for new technology - the computer age.
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