Volume No. 2 Issue No. 56 - Thursday October 2, 2008
IN Memorium Ernest W. ANDRÉ
 By Judge Irving Andre
Ernest Wilford André died peacefully on September 27, 2008 at the Princess Margaret Hospital two days before he was scheduled to have major surgery. He was born on January 13, 1925 in Portsmouth, the son of road supervisor Austin Leonard André and Yvonne Jno Baptiste, resident of Lagon.
As a young man, he travelled throughout the north with his father while the latter supervised the building of the road from Portsmouth to Marigot.
As a result, his attendance at the Portsmouth Government School was sporadic. Even then, he excelled at the school to the point of winning a special Administrator’s Scholarship to the Dominica Grammar School in 1936.
He was a student at the DGS from 1936 to 1942 where his contemporaries included students Franklin Baron, Edward Watty, Stanley Fadelle and Ashton Piper. He excelled in the science subjects.
In 1942 he sat the examinations which would determine the recipient of the sole island scholarship and guarantee the successful candidate’s future.
When the results were officially released in 1943, the Chronicle reported the results: First Grade, Desmond McIntyre and Edward Watty; Second Grade Ernest Andre; Third Grade Ashton Piper and Stanley Fadelle.
Family circumstances conspired to ensure that within six months of the results being released, Ernest would leave Dominica bound for Curaçao. He secured a job with the local oil refinery, working in its laboratory. He progressed through the ranks until he gained a supervisory position.
He met his future wife Margaret (LeBlanc) in 1949. They got married in 1951 and in the ensuing seventeen years had seven children, Alan, Yvonne, Ernest, Irving, Leonard, Celia and Austin. He returned to Dominica in 1956 for the funeral of his younger brother, Alan and then for good in 1961.
He secured employment at the Sub Treasury in Portsmouth and progressed to become the town’s harbourmaster. On many weekends, he replaced the epaulets of the customs officer with the ensemble of the fisherman.
With two or three children in tow, he boarded a small rowboat and rowed across the bay, past the old market, beyond Lagon to an area below the Cabrits.
There, for the next few hours, he sat fishing, a frown on his face as if concerned that the maweyan, tansh or redfish were not biting the bait. He was transferred to Roseau in 1970 where he worked as a Customs Officer.
In the ensuing period, he simultaneously supported five children who boarded at the Dominica Grammar School and Convent High School, himself while he lived at the Marine Club opposite the Carib Cinema, and his wife and two youngest children in Portsmouth, all on a meagre monthly salary of approximately $350.00.
In Roseau, he worked with the Customs Department until he achieved the rank of Comptroller of Customs. He completed courses in Trinidad and Australia. Throughout his life, he read voraciously from an eclectic collection of more than 500 books.
His interests were many and varied. He read the classics in literature, the works of the Great Agnostics and others on philosophy and history.
For many years, he religiously picked up a copy of Time Magazine from Cee-Bees bookstore and typically, with a cigarette at the edge of his mouth, read all the tidbits of news and opinions from its pages.
But always he returned to his books which he meticulously covered with brown paper and poured over them as if he was a Benedictine monk. With his flowing handwriting, perfected by correspondence courses on architecture, he wrote and underlined the title of each book, invariably in blue ink.
One of his favourites was a book written in 1971 entitled Lord Chesterfield, Letters Written to his Natural Son on Manners and Morals. He had obviously scoured the text since he had underlined and bracketed certain passages which appealed to him.
Some of Lord Chesterfield’s instructions appear quite sexist and elitist today but others have a relevance in every age or context.
One of his favourites was: “Neither retail nor receive scandal willingly; for though the defamation of others may for the present gratify the malignity of the pride of our hearts, cool reflection will draw very disadvantageous conclusions from such a disposition; and in the case of scandal, as in that of robbery, the receiver is always thought as bad as the thief.” He must have taken this admonition to heart since I never heard him speak ill of anyone.
He loved poetry. One of his favourite poets was Omar Khayyam. When in a euphoric mood, which invariably was on a Sunday afternoon, he repeated the words of Khayyam’s Rubaiyat: “Ah love! Could you and I with fate conspire/To gauge this sorry Scheme of Things entire.” On other Sundays, he engaged in intellectual jousts with friends, interrupted by pauses for libation.
He enjoyed going to the market. He loved music. He had a fine collection of classical music and listened, often with glazed eyes, to Gregorian Chants. He embraced jazz music and counted Nat King Cole as one of his favourites.
Occasionally, after he had paid homage to the God of Bacchus, he serenaded Franklyn Lane with the big band sounds of Nat King Cole, Count Basie and Duke Ellington.
At the end, he sought solace in a little garden at the back of his home. When the debilitating effects of poor blood circulation had severely restricted his mobility, he maintained a stoicism which often found expression in one of his favourite phrases, “Fun of life, why worry.”
Ernest W. André was a wonderful husband, father, brother, friend and grandfather. He will be terribly missed by Margaret - wife of 57 years, seven children, sixteen grandchildren, sisters Alicia and Miriam, brothers Alick, Crispin and Stafford. Two other brothers, Arthur and Alan and sister Gwendolyn predeceased him.
 E-mail to a friend
|
|
