Sybil Gwendolyn Watson

Celebrating the life of Sybil Gwendolyn Watson the service has been set for the following:

Viewing date: 11/11/2021 Thursday

Viewing Time: 6:00pm - 8:00pm

Location: Donato Askew Memorial Home

Address: 364 Shrewsbury Avenue Red Bank, NJ 07701

Funeral Service will be on Friday 11/12/2021

Time: 10:00am - 11:00am

Location: St. Thomas Episcopal Church

Address: 26 Sunset Avenue Red Bank, NJ 07701

Zoom for the service on Friday 11/12/2021:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89652649477

Meeting ID: 896 5264 9477
Passcode: 075889
 

Funeral service will be held virtually please contact St. Thomas Episcopal Church for the zoom information at (732) 747-1039

A message from the Watson family in lieu of flowers please send donations for Sybil Watson to the St. Thomas Episcopal Church or Lunch Break!

Entrusted to Donato Askew Memorial Home

Please continue to keep the family in our prayers!!!!

Obituary:

Sybil Gwen (Elaine) Watson was born on November 10th 1925 in Victoria, Guyana to her parents Marion Benn (‘Ma Benn’) and Fredrick Watson. She was a loving and beautiful baby who many referred to as ‘Baby Watson’. Victoria was the town that her ancestors co-founded just after enslavement to build independence, wealth and community. It is where Gwen and her siblings grew up and continues to be a town to this day.

She attended Victoria Roman Catholic School and St. Andrew’s Anglican School Cove and John in East Coast Demerara. She excelled in domestic science, book binding and needle work. This time and training planted the seeds of the great cook, baker, seamstress and stylish dresser she would become in adulthood. 

On January 14, 1950, she gave birth to her daughter, Maylene.  Maylene was her pride and joy to whom she gave a lifetime of support and care. In the early 1950s she and Maylene moved to Georgetown, Guyana’s capital, so Gwen could seek employment. They lived in Georgetown’s Kingston section with their extended family who helped and supported them during this time. 

Throughout her life, Gwen was deeply engaged in paid and civic work for her livelihood and for the wellbeing of all the communities she lived in. In Georgetown, she was a counter clerk at Swan Laundry, a processing operator at the Guyana Rice Marketing Board, a housekeeper for the British High Commissioner and a home health aide in private duty. She was very involved in local and national politics in Guyana as a member of the United Democratic Party (UDP) and the People’s National Congress (PNC). She was also a member of St. Philip’s Anglican Church where she was active in fundraising with the Mothers’ Union.

In 1984, at the age of 59, Gwen migrated to the USA and relocated to Red Bank, NJ which would be her home until her death. She took endless care of her three grandchildren, Gillian, Janis and Stephen, when her daughter, Maylene went back to school to get her college degree.

In New Jersey, she worked for over a decade as a home health aide in private duty where she cared for elderly people and young children. She also worked at the Navesink House and the Red Bank YMCA.

Gwen was a proud and long time volunteer at Lunch Break where for many years she helped collect and sort food and clothing for her neighbors in need. She was also a dedicated poll clerk with the Monmouth County Board of Elections. She was a rare breed who was excited to serve on juries as she felt it was her civic duty to support her community in this way, which she did on multiple occasions. Gwen was also a passionate member of the Democratic Party in Red Bank and nationally and could always be heard saying, “I support the party!”; and her dedication deepened further with the election of President Barack Obama. 

She was a member for 37 years at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Red Bank where she did outreach work at the local convalescent center. She was also a member of the St. Monica’s  Episcoal Church Women and regularly fundraised for the church’s Sunday school. She enjoyed working in the kitchen serving breakfast to her fellow parishioners during her birthday month of November.

She also loved to travel, locally, around the country and globally. She made many trips to Atlantic City, and to visit her extended family in New York, Florida and elsewhere. She also loved visiting Toronto, London and Paris. For the nearly forty years she lived in the United States, she went back to Guyana almost annually. Whether traveling or just taking a stroll around Red Bank, which she was well known to do, Gwen was an impeccable dresser who was always in the latest fashions. She received lots of compliments and was a style icon to many. Her fierceness and feistiness were legendary. She fought hard for her dignity and power until the end and she taught us to do the same. 

Her life’s commitment was to family. Throughout her life, as the eldest, she always loved and sacrificed for her siblings. She also cared for her mother, father, aunts and uncles in their last years. When she became a matriarch in her family, she supported her cousins, nieces and nephews through the ups and downs of their lives, sadly having to bury many before her own passing. She helped to raise her grandchildren but reserved her deepest love for her grandson, Stephen Gregory Rosheuvel, whom she never tired of doting on. 

Sybil Gwen Watson departed this world on Tuesday, October 26th 2021 at Riverview Medical Center after a short illness. She is preceded in death by her mother and father, her brother, Cecil Benn and her sisters, Shirley Gill and Valene Hadmon.

She is survived by her daughter, Maylene, her son-in-law Rev. Canon Terrence Rosheuvel, her grandchildren, Gillian, Janis and Stephen as well as her sisters, Sheila Jones and Beryl Watson, nephews, Clive Gill, Dexter Jones, Andrew McPherson, Marcel Benn, Floyd Hadmon, Sean Hadmon, Anthony Butts, Noel Butts, John Butts, nieces, Patricia Roberts, Roxanne Argyle, Jennifer Kirton, Dionne Jones, Dawn Wilson, Donna Butts, Paula Ashley, Margaret Butts, Nicola Butts, Margaret Philips, Joan Hadmon, Roseamunde Gravesande and Simone Benn, cousins, Waveney Duke and Sybil Saul and the many extended family and friends who loved and cared for her throughout her life.  She will be missed dearly by them all. 

In lieu of flowers, please send donations in the name of Sybil Gwen Watson to St. Thomas Episcopal Church or Lunch Break, both places she loved and devoted many hours of service to over the years. 

Her family would like to extend sincere thanks to her church family for their love and support during this time of mourning, transition and celebration of Gwen’s life.

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