Last Updated on October 7, 2020, 6:52 AM AST by Anthony Morris
Jamaica’s oldest citizen, Charles Edward James, has died. James passed away on Sunday morning at his Holly Hill home in Darliston, Westmoreland.
Charles, who was affectionately called ‘Maas Tata’, was reportedly born in Darliston on February 3, 1905.
Charles was presumed to be possibly the world’s oldest citizen after he celebrated his 115th birthday earlier this year.
Fritz James, one of the ten children of Maas Tata, said that has the family a little disappointed by the death of his father because they could not verify, through authorised documents, that he was, the oldest man in Jamaica as well as the world.
Fritz said that he could not understand why they did not have a record of that.
He added after making enquiries to verify the date of birth of his father at the Registrar General’s Department recently that his father was old, but the authorities should have records going back even before the birth of his father.
Fritz said that his father had fond memories of his childhood, which included the passage of the hurricane of 1912, which affected Jamaica and Cuba.
80-year-old James, his father, had told him that he was attending school in Darliston at the St John’s Anglican Church in the 1912 storm. He was around seven years then.
A manifest and Maas Tata’s birth certificate were obtained from the SS David C. Shank, a ship which made a voyage to Jamaica in 1943. Charles would have been about 38 years old at the time.
The oldest known living person as of October 6 is Kane Tanaka of Japan who is aged 117 years, 278 days. The oldest living man on record to date is Saturnino de la Fuente, of Spain who was aged 111 years, 241 days.
Jamaica had up to recently enjoyed the historic feat of having the oldest living woman – Violet Mosse-Brown, also known as Aunt V, from Duanvale, Trelawny. She died on September 15, 2017, aged 117.
Anthony Morris covers stories related to politics and regional developments. His in-depth reporting about governance and reforms makes him stand out in regional journalism, with a deep analysis of political trends and their impact on Caribbean communities.
