Esther Allen Bentley

Mrs. Esther Lucille Allen Bentley was a larger than life personality, not too unlike most her siblings and their offspring. She was born on March 8, 1904. She was the second of ten children (six girls and four boys) of John Richard Allen of St. Kitts and Helena Richardson Smith Allen of North Shore, Pembroke.

The Allens could easily be described as the first family of Bermuda, as far as the contributions they made particularly in the field of music, politics and nursing.

Two days after celebrating her 106th birthday, Mrs. Bentley died peacefully at the Packwood Home, Somerset. She had spent the better part of her life in New York, retiring to the Island in the 1990s.

At an early age, all ten of the Allen siblings walked from home to the Edith Crawford School in Hamilton. Esther's best subjects were music, arithmetic, grammar, spelling and composition. She graduated at age 16.

The Allen household was a music cell. Their father encouraged the children from an early age to play various instruments, piano, organ and trumpet. They were known in the neighbourhood as the Allen Band. The children and parents sang and improvised music together.

Esther was aged five when she started playing piano. She was 14 when her parents could afford to send her for formal tuition on the piano and organ under Mrs. Amy Jackson Dill. She became assistant to Mrs. Dill who was organist at St.Paul's AME Church, Hamilton. Recognizing her talent the church offered her a scholarship to attend the prestigious Juilliard School of Music.

Although reluctant at first about leaving home at her young age, she eventually went to Julliard at age 18 where her love for classical music was cultivated, especially for Mozart, Bach and Beethoven. Esther became engrossed in the life of New York. She played piano in the junior bands of Duke Ellington and Count Bassie, gaining tips that served her well when she started her own band. And she became a noted concert singer.

In 1942 Esther became the wife of Earl Bentley of Harlem, where they lived before moving with their daughter Earlene to Jamaica, Long Island. Earlene was steeped in music and the performing arts, and went to London where she has carved out a career in her own name.

Earlene made frequent visits from London to visit her mother. She came for her 106th birthday, left the day afterwards and sadly the very next day her mother died. Her homegoing service was conducted at the Pearman Rest Home by Pastor Betty-Furbert-Woolridge. Her remains were cremated to be returned to New York, where Earlene wanted her interred beside her husband.

It was not generally known but Mrs. Bentley had a miraculous recovery when at age 66 she suffered a major stroke, losing use of an arm, leg and her speech. After much prayer and confinement for a year in hospital, she gained normalcy with all but her singing voice.

On the occasion of her 100th birthday, when she was honoured at the Somerset Seventh Day Adventist Church, at the piano she played one of her favourite pieces, "Come Thou Fount of Many Blessings". She asked the congregation to sing the words, and halfway through, family said they distinctly heard Mrs. Bentley strongly singing along in a beautiful voice. They were amazed.

Mrs. Bentley gave regular concerts with and for her students in New York and other parts of the US, brought groups to perform in Bermuda and travelled to Canada, England, Hawaii and Mexico.

The only survivor of the ten Allen siblings is 104-year-old Gwen Marie Allen who resides at the Jewish Home Life Care in New York.

Glancing at how the Allens qualified to be Bermuda's First Family in the performing arts, politics and otherwise, we see in random order, the late Cora Allen Trott, who came very much to the fore in Gregory Gordon Productions at the old Colonial Opera House, being lead actress in the "Boat in the Bottle". She was a leading soloist in the St. Paul AME Church Choir, in the Fordham Chorus, and for years was Matron at the Matilda Smith Home.

Cora was also mother of Eloise Dzofonoo, an organ and piano artist who traveled extensively abroad before opening her own Institute of Music in Hamilton. Cora's other children included Marlene Trott, RN, who practised nursing in London, West Africa and at home in Bermuda, being among other things head of Lefroy House.

The late Godfrey Allen was a vocalist and choral director. There was the late Yvonne Allen Blackett, vocalist, educator and mother of Dr. Joy Blackett, now retired after having performed at New York's Carnegie hall and other famous places in Europe. Another daughter, the late Carmen Blackett, ventured into politics as a parliamentary candidate for the United Bermuda Party.

There was Mansfield Allen, trumpeter in some of Bermuda's best dance bands. The late Gladys Allen Davis was mother of the late Barbara (Lovie) Davis, who qualified at nursing in London and came home to be the first black Bermudian on staff at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital. Lovie's sister is Leann Davis, a noted gospel singer.

Perhaps the most iconic of all the Allen siblings, aside from Esther, was Wilfred Allen. Better known as 'Mose' Allen, he was first among the seven men who founded the now ruling Bermuda Progressive Labour Party. Wilfred's daughter is Ms Sandra Allen, former coordinator of the Extended Care Unit at KEMH and administrator at Matilda Smith Williams Home. Now retired from nursing, she works at the Bermuda Housing Trust.

As noted earlier, all of the Allen siblings had significant musical gifts, feisty tempers and a propensity for nursing, genes of which have been passed on to their offspring, who are omitted from this piece for reasons of space alone.