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Sunday, July 20, 2025

Arima man celebrates 110th birthday

by

Carisa Lee
30 days ago
20250620
Centenarian Irving Joseph shows off his birthday cake as relatives look on at the family home during his 110th birthday celebration at St Joseph Street, Arima on June 17.

Centenarian Irving Joseph shows off his birthday cake as relatives look on at the family home during his 110th birthday celebration at St Joseph Street, Arima on June 17.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

For many par­ents, liv­ing long enough to see their chil­dren ful­fil their dreams, is a dream it­self. But the daugh­ter of 110-year-old Irv­ing Joseph, of Ari­ma, said this is her fa­ther’s re­al­i­ty,

“One of his dreams for me per­son­al­ly was to be­come a teacher, you know he al­ways want­ed me to be­come a teacher and I was like ‘no’ and even­tu­al­ly I end­ed up turn­ing out to be a teacher and I know he is very hap­py about that,” his youngest daugh­ter Josanne Joseph said.

The su­per­cente­nar­i­an who cel­e­brat­ed his birth­day at his St Joseph Street home on Tues­day, sur­round­ed by his loved ones, was paid a spe­cial vis­it by Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment (MP) for the area and Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les. She said she has made room in the cal­en­dar for Joseph's birth­day every year since he turned 100 years old.

Equipped with a birth­day cake and his favourite cel­e­bra­to­ry drink of John­ny Walk­er Black and Co­conut Wa­ter, Beck­les knew ex­act­ly what the for­mer pub­lic ser­vant would en­joy.

“I’ve been vis­it­ing him for a long time, more specif­i­cal­ly I’ve been here when he was 100 and there there­after every year,” Beck­les said.

She shared that the old­est man liv­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go was ho­n­oured by the Min­istry of Works where he was em­ployed. She re­called the sto­ries of him and his friends walk­ing to Paria where he worked.

In a brief con­ver­sa­tion with Joseph, Beck­les asked him how he was feel­ing and he replied that he was feel­ing al­right. She then com­ment­ed on his out­fit, a white shirt and blue jeans. The MP then asked if he was in any pain but Joseph replied, that he was feel­ing good.

His daugh­ter Josanne re­mem­bered his easy­go­ing na­ture when she was grow­ing up. She re­called how his rod of cor­rec­tion was ac­tu­al­ly a hat and he al­ways al­lowed her to go to nu­mer­ous events even when her moth­er said no.

“Dad would say nah, let her go and he will find that mon­ey,” she shared.

She said Joseph was very gen­tle, es­pe­cial­ly with the girls and would take them out­side of Ari­ma of­ten to ex­plore the coun­try.

“He used to like to take us out, prob­a­bly show off his girls, so he would go and take us by the mar­ket there or go down South,” she said.

And now that her dad has been around to see his chil­dren grow, his daugh­ter said there was one more goal to ful­fil.

“One of his dreams al­so is for all his chil­dren to own their own homes... we hop­ing that will come true,” she shared.


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