The most mundane tasks seemed impossible after Otives Doars’s leg was amputated six years ago.

It was a frustrating period, but the 89-year-old is now grateful that her children encouraged her independence.

“I still drive,” she said. “My children would like me to give it up, but I am not ready to stop yet.”

Her big regret is that she can’t be as active in the Salvation Army as she once was.

In her younger days she cooked for the homeless, sometimes making as many as 60 meals on her own.

“I loved cooking for the Salvation Army,” she said. “They were full meals with macaroni and cheese, chicken or beef.

“I had a Portuguese friend who supplied us with vegetables and saved the Salvation Army a lot of money.”

In the 1970s, she noticed that many of the people she was feeding had drug and alcohol problems.

She took to the streets to tackle the problem, creating her own street ministry in North Hamilton.

“Every Friday night I would visit nightclubs in the area,” she said. “Some people didn’t like to be bothered, but others were interested in being saved.

“If they were interested I would ask them to ask God to send them to a church; we couldn’t suggest a particular church.”

After people were cleaned up they were sent to Bernadine Smith’s store, Bon Marche, on Court Street, for counselling. Bon Marche became known as the ‘soul-saving station’.”

Mrs Doars’s street ministry work wasn’t easy, and her life was threatened on at least one occasion. The last man she helped was a drug dealer.

“After he came out of the Harbour Light Centre [an addiction treatment facility], he got married and had a family,” she said. “He lived a good life after that.”

She taught Sunday school for years. Former students still come up to her to ask if she remembers them.

Nobody skipped Sunday school under her watch without a valid reason. If they missed a class she’d go looking for them the next day.

Mrs Doars was raised in the Pentecostal church, and grew up on the North Shore in Devonshire.

“In those days it was a lovely place,” she said. “You were able to sleep with your windows open and your doors unlocked. Those were beautiful days.”

She was the fifth of eight children.

“We were close as children, and we still are,” she said. “I have three sisters left now.”

Her mother, Matilda Hodgson, was a cook, and her father, Albert, was a stonecutter. Mr Hodgson died suddenly when she was 12, leaving her mother to raise the family on her own.

“I had to leave school at 14 to help my mother,” said Mrs Doars. “The older children always had to help with the younger ones.”

She followed in her mother’s footsteps and became a cook, working for restaurants such as the Hog Penny, and in private homes. At 16, she was working for three schoolteachers when she met her future husband, Bernard Doars.

“At the time he was working for the farmers’ market,” she said. “He would deliver groceries to the sisters. We got to talking, as children do. When he found out where I went to church he took to hanging around outside and peeking in at me.”

They were married in 1944, when she was 18.

“I think the hardest time in my life was early on when we had four young children to care for,” she said. “He worked in the Dockyard, I don’t remember doing what, but he didn’t get paid very much. I had to learn to make meals stretch.”

Her husband worshipped with the Salvation Army and she followed him into it.

“I went to the Pentecostal Church for a while but then I had two babies and it was a distance from my house.”

Mr Doars died in 1996 after 52 years of marriage.

Today, Mrs Doars stays busy knitting and reading.

“When I am at home I am usually in the word [reading the Bible],” she said. “In my life I am most proud that the Lord has saved me. There are some things I can’t do around the house anymore, but I can still worship Him. I am proud that He has brought me through and out of the difficult times.”

She has four children, Cheryl Jones and Gladwin, Phillip and Bernard Doars and numerous grandchildren and great grandchildren.

The Royal Gazette profiles senior citizens in the community every Tuesday in Lifestyle. To suggest an outstanding senior contact Jessie Moniz Hardy: 278-0150 or jmhardy@royalgazette.com. Have on hand the senior’s full name, contact details and the reason you are suggesting them.