Monica Lewis

Monica Lewis nee Joseph was born on the 3rd. July 1933 to John and Ignacia Joseph in Port of Spain, Trinidad. She was the first of eleven children from that marriage and at the death of her mother in April 1952 at the age of almost nineteen years she took on the responsibility of the mother to her siblings. By that time she herself was already mother to her first child Meryl who was born just three months before her mother’s death. She was married to George Arthur Lawrence for whom she bore four children Meryl, George Jr. Joseph (Roger) and Darryl and from a tender age Anthony who was always recognized as her fifth child.  She also mentored and guided all her grandchildren, nieces and nephews and further extended it to their children.  She began her teaching career the same year that her mother died at Eastern Boys Government School on Nelson Street, Port of Spain and was mentored and trained by one of the finest school principals of that era, Mr. Oswald Romilly. From that school she entered the Teachers Training College on Wrightson Road, Port of Spain and on completion of that course of studies she was assigned to the Four Roads Government School in Diego Martin. She was later reassigned to the Eastern Girls Government School where her career blossomed and at which school her teaching services ended in Trinidad, when she migrated to the United States in 1969. She also taught adult classes at the Tranquility Government School at nights. Today there are hundreds of professional, semiprofessional and other men and women who can attribute their educational upbringing to Monica, most notable of them being the world renowned author Shiva Naipaul.   Upon her migration to the USA she worked in the banking and other private sector organizations but her love for teaching was overpowering and she was thrown back into her first love when she took up the challenge at a Catholic School in Brooklyn, where, as can be expected she again demonstrated her knack for imparting knowledge to young people. In the late 1980s she moved to South Florida and as fate would have it she joined the teaching team at the Phyls Academy, a private teaching establishment where her teaching skills catapulted her into the Principal’s chair. Parents who she taught in Trinidad enrolled their children at Phyls because of her and even when she was retired she still found time to assist with the FCAT training at  the school. Presently there are countless men and women in all walks of life who can justifiably boast that they are where they are now, due in large part to the teaching and guidance of Monica. Until her passing she was happily married to Joseph Lewis for more than forty years