Antigua and Barbuda has lost a living piece of its history. Denzil O'Brien Cummins of Sea View Farm — the nation's only male centenarian — passed away on Thursday evening at the age of 101, just days after being honoured during this year's Centenarian Week celebrations.
Cummins, who was born on September 17, 1925, died just days after he was recognised during the country's Centenarian Week outreach activities, which were attended by Governor General Sir Rodney Williams and Director of the Community Development and Citizens' Engagement Division Dale O'Brien.
The timing of his passing is bittersweet — only this week he sat with the nation's highest constitutional officer, received the recognition of a grateful country, and was celebrated as one of the remarkable few to have crossed the century mark. Days later, he was gone.
The Ministry of Social and Urban Transformation extended condolences to Cummins' family and the Sea View Farm community, while residents remembered him as a man who touched many lives.
Born in the year that would see the formation of the Antigua Trades and Labour Union — three years before Women's Suffrage was introduced and more than three decades before independence — Denzil Cummins lived through the entire arc of modern Antiguan history. He witnessed colonial rule and independence, the birth of a nation, and over a century of the joys and sorrows of a Caribbean life fully lived.
