Alexander and Marian Owens

ALEXANDER OWENS my grandfather, was born in 1878. He grew up in Royal Flatt in Manchester, in Jamaica West Indies. My grandmother MARIAN MORGAN, was born in 1880 and grew up in Richmond Green, St.Mary, in Jamaica West Indies. My grandfather met and married my grandmother in Jackson, St.Mary and they set up house in Richmond Green, St.Mary in 1901.

Alexander became a manager at the Railroad Station in Montego Bay. His wife Marian was a housewife raising their nine children, Albert, Oscar, Percy, Olga, Ernest, Pauline, Ellen, Azalee, and Elsie.

The Owens family had a farm in Richmond Green; they raised chickens, goats, pigs and horses. They cultivated banana, coffee, chocolate, pimento, breadfruit and ackee. They were happy in this tropical paradise.

The children all attended school at the Jackson School in nearby Jackson. There was a river between the Owens farm and the school house. This river was called Broad Stone River. Sometimes because of heavy rains, Oscar would have to take his younger siblings on Sport Boy the big stallion that he liked to ride. He rode the horse through the deep wide river to the other bank so the children could get to school. When the children were coming home from school in the evening, if the river was still flooded, they would stay at Aunt Ada’s house so they wouldn’t have to cross the river again until the water went down.

There was a big jackfruit tree on the family farm, and just about every other day Cynthia, Elsie, Lena, Ellen and Pauline would always go by to pick jackfruit. However almost every time they attempted to get these fruits, a large green lizard would challenge them by bobbing his head up and down and sticking out the bright orange dewlap under his throat. The girls would run screaming down the hill without the jackfruit. They all felt maybe it was a ghost (duppy) that had taken on the form of the lizard to stop them from getting the jackfruit.

Marian Owens was a very religious woman. The family attended Jackson Baptist church.