The Tribune

ON Thursday afternoon, death quietly closed the eyes of Mrs Inez Smith, 82, of Mathew Town, Inagua.

In an interview 18 years ago, Mrs Smith told us that she had forgiven all of those who had so grievously harmed her. After explaining that her children and grandchildren into the third, and fourth generations will never forgive her political oppressors, she quietly remarked: “As for me, I am at peace. It is over.”

Yes, it is over. We are confident that as she lived, so did she die — at peace.

Mrs Smith’s story is an illustration of why the referendum on the constitutional amendment— which government continues to push into oblivion – is urgently needed. The proposed referendum is to amend the constitution to grant Bahamian women the same rights as Bahamian men as regards citizenship for their children and non-Bahamian husbands. Last year, the Constitutional Commission recommended that the referendum be held at the end of April or in June at the latest. April and June quickly slipped by with the new date of November being suggested. All these dates were proposed for last year. Here we are a whole year later and silence reigns. All we can glean is that there is opposition to one of the amendments for fear of opening the door to same sex marriage. With some of our politicians, it seems that any flimsy excuse is better than none.

On March 9, 1973, The Tribune reported that a Turks Island resident, father of nine Bahamian children and married to a Bahamian, was ordered to leave Inagua.

Mrs Inez Smith, formerly a Ferguson from Acklins who was raised in Inagua, described how her home was destroyed by the evils of politics. Her husband, Wellington Smith, arrived in Inagua from Turks Island when a teenager. He was employed by the Ericksons at their Inagua salt pans and continued with the company after it was taken over by Morton Salt.

The Smiths were married in Inagua in 1956. When their political troubles started, they had nine children. By the time it ended there were ten.

The 1972 election campaign was in full swing. The late T Joe Ford, the PLP’s incumbent candidate, had sent a message to Mrs Smith informing her that if she did not vote for him, he would send her husband back to Turks Island.

“I was angry,” she told us, “and so I openly campaigned for Mr Vernon Symonette (FNM). I was never a PLP.” Besides, the Smiths and Symonettes were next door neighbours.

Shortly after the elections, the PLP government ordered Mr Smith back to the Turks. He was given seven days to get his affairs in order and leave. He was told that he could never return to Inagua — not even for a visit. “That was a set back,” said Mrs Smith.

Mr Smith was well respected in the community. Active in church work, he was a treasurer of Gospel Chapel.

Mr and Mrs Smith flew to Nassau to try to have the order cancelled. Mrs Smith left her husband at Nassau International Airport (now Sir Lynden Pindling Airport) while she went to the Cabinet Office in town to get the advice of her cousin, Cabinet Secretary HC Walkine.

She said her cousin was surprised when he learned that the order was against her husband. Many evacuation orders had been sent out for all Turks Island families to leave Inagua. Wellington Smith’s name was on the list. Her cousin promised to help.

However, when she returned to the airport she learned that her husband was so frightened that he had boarded a Mackey Airlines aircraft and left for the Turks.

“My husband was really hurt, he often said. ‘This is what your people did to me.’ He didn’t stick around. He left. He had just built me a home.”

About a year later, a friend was flying to Inagua for a few hours. Mr Smith decided to fly with him to see his family and “bring support money and gifts for the children”.

The Customs officer stopped Mr Smith at the airport. He told him that whatever he had brought he would have to take back to “wherever he came from”. He was not allowed to go into Mathew Town to see his family.

However, a friend, hearing the exchange at the airport, hurried into town. He collected Mrs Smith, the two-year-old baby and the four children who were on their way to school — the older four were already in class and had to be left behind. The friend drove them to the airport.

“When I got there he was washed away in tears. When I put my hand on him, he burst out crying and hugged his little baby. All of us hugged and cried because he was leaving us again,” said Mrs Smith.

Shortly after The Tribune published the airport incident, Mrs Smith received a letter from then prime minister Pindling, who said her case was being investigated. Mr Ford later sent for her and accused her of reporting him to the Cabinet. He wanted to know why. She explained that she had gone to the Cabinet because he had said he didn’t want to see her or her family. Mrs Smith then received a letter from the Cabinet office which said that her husband would be welcome back, but he could not work in The Bahamas.

To enable the family to have some time together, Morton Salt gave Wellington Smith a job as an engineer on their salt ship, Cecile Erickson, which plied between Inagua and Brunswick, Georgia.

Every eight days, the ship was back in Inagua for salt, and Mr Smith joined his family for a few hours while the ship was loaded for the return trip to Brunswick. Occasionally he was able to overnight. This was when the tenth child was born.

But life was never the same for the Smiths.

“He told me he had no mind to stay here anymore amongst my people because of what they did to him. Sometimes he didn’t want to come off the ship,” she said.

From a man who always helped people, he no longer did anything in the community. The children were also upset. If anything went wrong at school or in the community, they were taunted about being “foreign drifters”.

By January 1990, Mrs Smith saw a dramatic change in her husband. When the ship was in port he did not come home. He spent most of his time in the barroom. That year, he divorced her, remarried and settled in Georgia. However, that marriage did not last.

One by one the children left home. Some of the daughters settled in Brunswick, where one was a nurse and the other a surgeon. Only three of the children remained in the Bahamas.

Funeral services will be held for Mrs Smith in Nassau on October 10 at Carmichael Bible Church, Carmichael Road.

However, even today government seems in no hurry to amend the constitution so that Mrs Smith’s tragic story can never be repeated.