One of the tributes, coming from the Ministry of Education, Youth Affairs and Sports, following the announcement of the death of Mrs. Margaret Annie Dyer-Howe (Rt. Hon. OE MBA) on the night of April 6, 2019 captured near accurately the woman who had just passed.
She hailed from the village of St. Patrick’s in the south of Montserrat, now devasted and completely overrun by Soufriere Hills volcano, last of Olveston.
Born on November 18, 1940 to be recognised on the way as one of Montserrat’s Icons.
She was assigned a ministerial post with responsibility for education, health, community services, women’s affairs, culture and sports, in 1983, then being reelected after 1979. She later held the post of Minister of Agriculture, Housing, Land etc.
She held many roles in her lifetime, and briefly to name a few, school teacher, entrepreneur, manufacturer, Justice of the Peace, and General Manager at the Montserrat Water Authority, a position she held for many years beginning some time after she lost a legislative seat in the southern district to Bertrand B. Osborne who predeceased her just last year.
Her first ministerial post was that in the Ministry of Education, Health, Community Affairs etc. and it is from then she was mostly remembered and no doubt prompted the Ministry to scribe at her death: “No one can reasonably deny the iconic and heroic stature of this Montserratian who has achieved so much. She was not just a great Montserratian woman and indeed a great Caribbean, woman, but a great champion of the human cause.
As can be expected, and not surprisingly there have been many tributes, some of which we will post on the website online and in the print copy of the newspaper.
Not surprisingly ‘Annie’ as folks my age and know her as well, from St. Patrick’s would remember her, will be afforded a State’s funeral. She will, following her funeral service of remembrance and thanksgiving, at the Roman Catholic Church in Lookout on Friday, May 10, be laid to rest then at the burial site.
Condolences go out to her entire family and the whole of Montserrat who she served. May she rest in peace.
