Richard Lord

The State is ex­pect­ed pro­vide fund­ing for the fu­ner­al ser­vice for Pa­tri­cia Robin­son, wife of for­mer pres­i­dent Arthur NR Robin­son, who died in her sleep yes­ter­day morn­ing at her fam­i­ly's Eller­slie Park home.

No date has as yet been an­nounced for the fu­ner­al. She was 79 and had been ail­ing for sev­er­al years with Alzheimer's dis­ease and di­a­betes. She had not been seen in pub­lic for sev­er­al years. Short­ly af­ter 6 o'clock yes­ter­day morn­ing, Mrs Robin­son's daugh­ter Ann Mar­garet and her grand­daugh­ter were at her bed­side when she was pro­nounced dead by the fam­i­ly doc­tor. Born in March 1930 at the cor­ner of Ox­ford and Ob­ser­va­to­ry Streets, in east Port-of-Spain, Mrs Robin­son told the Guardian in an in­ter­view pub­lished on June 24, 1990: "I was born be­hind the bridge, so no­body from that area has any­thing on me."

She at­tend­ed the Tran­quil­i­ty Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School from where she won an ex­hi­bi­tion to St Joseph's Con­vent. Fol­low­ing a short stint in the pub­lic ser­vice, she at­tend­ed Co­lum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty in New York where she stud­ied eco­nom­ics, go­ing as far as com­plet­ing the course work for a PhD at the Ivy League col­lege. She joined the pub­lic ser­vice in 1958 and served the coun­try un­til March 1990, when she re­tired. She was sec­ond­ed from the pub­lic ser­vice to the Cen­tral Bank where she served as Di­rec­tor of Re­search be­tween 1968 and 1973. Yes­ter­day, Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Ewart Williams, who spent a year in the Cen­tral Bank's re­search de­part­ment in the late six­ties, said that he was one of many econ­o­mists who got their start un­der the lead­er­ship of Mrs Robin­son. "She was a teacher, a pret­ty tough teacher but she made sure that her staff straight out of Uni­ver­si­ty, un­der­stood the im­por­tance of learn­ing fun­da­men­tals and ap­ply­ing them to re­al world prob­lems. "She was a stick­ler for in­ter­pret­ing sta­tis­tics prop­er­ly and for clear, con­cise re­port writ­ing, al­ways re­mind­ing you that you could on­ly write it clear­ly if you un­der­stood the rea­son­ing well."

In the June 1990 in­ter­view she dis­closed that she was of­fered the job as Di­rec­tor of Re­search at the Cen­tral Bank in 1973 on a per­ma­nent ba­sis but that "the gov­ern­ment re­fused to re­lease me." She said she was placed in an of­fice in St Ann's and was giv­en noth­ing to do. "I was al­leged­ly on spe­cial as­sign­ment hav­ing to do with the Caribbean In­vest­ment Com­pa­ny or some­thing like that. In fact, it was a noth­ing job and I spent from '73 to '80 there on a sev­en-year sab­bat­i­cal." It is be­lieved that she was placed in­to "cold stor­age" dur­ing that pe­ri­od be­cause her hus­band had fall­en out with the rul­ing par­ty, hav­ing re­signed as a min­is­ter in April, 1970.

She joined NI­HERST in 1980 where she served as Di­rec­tor of Fi­nan­cial In­sti­tu­tions. Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning vis­it­ed the Robin­sons af­ter yes­ter­day's Cab­i­net meet­ing and ex­tend­ed his con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly. For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon is re­spon­si­ble for co-or­di­nat­ing the State's as­sis­tance for the fu­ner­al. She called the Robin­sons yes­ter­day to ex­tend her con­do­lences and is ex­pect­ed to vis­it the fam­i­ly this morn­ing.

Gopee-Scoon said yes­ter­day that she "want­ed to give Pres­i­dent Robin­son some time with his fam­i­ly be­fore meet­ing with him to dis­cuss what is re­quired." She con­firmed that the meet­ing will take place ear­ly this morn­ing. Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards al­so ex­tend­ed his con­do­lences to the Robin­son fam­i­ly on hear­ing of the for­mer First La­dy's death.

Sources close to the Robin­sons said yes­ter­day, the for­mer pres­i­dent was "deeply sad­dened" by his wife's death. The source said Robin­son al­ways said "She is still here with us" when any­one en­quired about his wife, Pa­tri­cia. She was the moth­er of two, David, an aero­nau­ti­cal en­gi­neer and Ann Mar­garet. For­mer Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Jen­nifer John­son said Mrs Robin­son will be re­mem­bered for her "in­tel­lec­tu­al bril­liance and her pas­sion for art." Mrs Robin­son cel­e­brat­ed her 79th birth­day on March 31 with a tea par­ty.

More In­fo

Mrs Robin­son re­ceived her MA in Eco­nom­ics at Co­lum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty in 1957. She was an econ­o­mist with the PNM Gov­ern­ment un­der Prime Min­is­ter Dr Er­ic Williams. From 1965 to 1967 she served as Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs. She was:

�2 Mem­ber of the In­ter­na­tion­al Lead­ers for Men­tal Health

�2 Chair­per­son of the Women's World Bank­ing Ltd

�2 Co-spon­sor of In­ter­na­tion­al Year of Vol­un­teers in 2001.

What Pres­i­dent Richards said:

My wife and I were sad­dened to learn of the death, this morn­ing, of Mrs. Pa­tri­cia Robin­son, wife of for­mer Pres­i­dent, The Ho­n­ourable Arthur N R Robin­son TC, OCC, SC. An out­stand­ing daugh­ter of the soil, Pa­tri­cia Robin­son was a bril­liant econ­o­mist who, as a se­nior pub­lic ser­vant, faith­ful­ly served this na­tion, mak­ing an in­deli­ble con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of the bank­ing and fi­nan­cial sec­tors, in­ter alia, in Trinidad and To­ba­go, be­fore as­sum­ing her role as First La­dy from 1997 to 2003. Her in­flu­ence, as an econ­o­mist, in ar­eas such as dou­ble tax­a­tion, was felt through­out the re­gion. The na­tion owes her a debt of grat­i­tude. To her fam­i­ly, she was a sup­port­ive and lov­ing wife, moth­er and grand­moth­er. Our hearts and prayers go out to them to­day–to her hus­band, The Ho­n­ourable Arthur N.R. Robin­son, her chil­dren, David and Ann Mar­garet, her grand daugh­ter, Anush­ka, as well as to her ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly.