Evangelist Ruth Ann Marie Simons was in extra high spirits when she celebrated her 99th birthday a week ago. It was at the Lorraine Rest Home in Warwick, where she has been an especially pampered resident for the past three years.

Ruth made it known to the host of family and friends in attendance that she fully appreciated their songs and salutations, but she wanted them to know she regarded it as just a prelude to the big event she’s praying for next year, which would be her 100th.

The day after the 99th Ruth attended her morning worship service where she gave a soul-stirring testimony that climaxed with her face aglow, in a liturgical dance that held her fellow worshippers in awe.

It seems Ruth has been spotlighted from the day she was born. Her parents were pillars in the Sandys Parish community. Her father was Clifford Burrows, one of the colourful movers and shakers at Somerset Cricket Club. His wife Albertha was similarly active in her church, the Somerset Wesley Methodist Church. A second daughter, Edith, and brothers made up the Burrows clan.

Ruth matured into a beautiful young woman. Her primary schooling was under the great Isaac Henry, followed by attendance at Sandys Secondary School. She had much ‘going for her’ in an era when non-white girls with the right light-skinned complexion, then called ‘hi-yella’ and so-called ‘good hair’ seemingly had advantages over their contemporaries. Ruth had both. At one stage she could sit on her hair. Also she had a good spirit and a captivating smile, which in later life earned her the distinction of being known as the lady with the million-dollar smile.

She managed to sustain all of her charms throughout the ‘Hi-Yella’ era and subsequently when the theme ‘Brown Girl Go Home and Mind Baby’ took sway and the even more powerful ‘Black is Beautiful’ theme popularised by James Brown.

Meanwhile Clifford Burrows was becoming more and more a notable part of Somerset Cricket Club’s Cup Match folklore. He had an impediment in his speech which gained him the nickname ‘Anna-Anna’. With all his other theatrics, his stammering made it difficult if not impossible for him to smoothly articulate the phrase: ‘and I (think or say, etc).’

That was back in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Somerset at that time was gaining in invincibility over St George’s, with much credit due to the stellar performances, first and foremost of the seven Alma [Champ] Hunt siblings on the one side, and a similar number of first cousins, the Arthur Simons brothers including Elliott, Austin and Brian Simons. They made up the bulk of Somerset’s team.

The rivalry between the Hunts and Simonses was intense. Their cricket was superb. The world famous West Indian Test cricket commentator CB Rock was prompted to write about what he termed the cricket lunacy rampant in Bermuda at Cup Match time. Alma was spectacular and prolific at bat. Arthur was flamboyant in the field and devastating as a bowler. More detailed coverage on what others had to state about Somerset players is contained in my book ‘CHAMP, the One and Only Alma Hunt’.

Clifford was a proud man when on April 30, 1936 he walked down the long white aisle of St James Church, Somerset to give his Ruth away in marriage to Arthur Simons. It was expected to be the wedding of the year. Back in that day dozens ordinarily flocked to the church to see the comings and goings at weddings.

Ruth was a beautiful bride. The wedding was fabulous. The reception at the beachfront residence of the Burrowses was grand. Their homestead at the edge of Ely’s Harbour was one of the few properties that survived the gold rush started by the millionaire American General Glancy preparing to develop the Willowbank Resort.

This writer was at the reception along with other big boys gawking outside the tent in the backyard where the wines and heavier spirits were freely flowing like water and everybody was happy, happy. In fact it was at that time I was embarking on my career as a Somerset News reporter for the Bermuda Recorder newspaper. I don’t lay claim to having covered the wedding for the paper. It was too big an event for a neophyte writer like yours truly.

Another unforgettable event pertaining to Ruth and Arthur was at Cup Match in Somerset later that year. Arthur was just going to bat when the club commentator made the dramatic announcemet that Mrs Ruth Simons had just given birth to her husband’s first son. Arthur was clean bowled for a sensational ‘duck’ on the next ball. That son was named Gilmour, which was the last of his father’s three Christian names. Six children were born of the marriage.

After Gilmour came Coleman, (Mrs) Pamela Tucker, Florence (who is deceased) (Mrs) Brenda Warren and Arthur 3rd.

Eventually Arthur retired from cricket and unlike many of the other Simons kin, he did not choose to go to the US seeking broader horizons. Instead he went to Jamaica in the West Indies in the early 1950s, and opened a first-class restaurant in Clarendon called BERJAM. ‘Ber’ was short for Bermuda and ‘Jam’ for Jamaica. He sent for his beautiful Bermudian wife and her six children. They all pitched in making a success of the business, serving among other things tasty Bermuda dishes,

The family gave up the restaurant business when Arthur had a conversion, becoming a devout Christian. With his wife at his side, they became missionaries in the Pentecostal denomination. Arthur was appointed pastor of a church in Darlston, Westmoreland and Ruth confirmed as an Evangelist. He was in Jamaica what his friend Rev Charles Foster [Holy] Fubler was in Bermuda.

In 1984 Arthur was stricken with illness from which he never recovered. A grieving Ruth brought his body back home for last rites at St James Church. He was given a big ‘send off’ by his old Somerset Cricket Club.