Dvance p raise for minding Their Own Business

and techniques
. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Street, B. V. (1995). Social literacies: Critical approaches to literacy in development, ethnogra-
phy and education
. New York, NY: Routledge.
Suarez, R. (2013). Latino Americans. New York, NY: Celebra.
Taulbert, C., & Schoengiger, G. (2010). Who owns the ice house?: Eight life lessons from an 
unlikely entrepreneur
. Cleveland, OH: ELI Press.
Wood, D. (1968). Trinidad in transition: The years after slavery. New York, NY: Oxford 
University Press.
Yin, R. (1994). Case-study research: Design and methods (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: 
Sage.

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Chapter 2
Maria’s Mountain
I like being CEO! I feel like I have accomplished something. This is mine. 
I have built it. This is a house that Jack built. I built it, not anybody else. I 
didn’t need to beg, borrow or steal. I did not borrow one cent! This is what 
my parents would have wanted for me, that you grow incrementally. That has 
certainly been achieved.
When Maria talked about an imaginary presentation to herself on the 
anniversary of her tenth year in business as a public relations profes-
sional, she said that she would commend herself on making the deci-
sion to leave a comfortable position at a corporate job, with a good 
salary, and go out on her own. Her husband, Manley, pointed out that 
he encouraged his wife to take the first step away from working for 
other people. Since he came from a family of independent business 
owners, it seemed a natural progression in a working person’s life. 
Manley knew that Maria’s years in journalism at one of the island’s 
leading newspapers “helped her out a bit because her experience … in 
terms of her knowledge, what happens [with] the personnel, the people 
she knows …. Also in terms of what will make news” were all assets in 
the making of a successful career. It was also important that Maria once 

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worked at the prime minister’s office in Trinidad before she began her 
university studies in Jamaica. A journey that began with representing 
companies as varied as the Water Authority, an investment corpora-
tion, a conglomerate of businesses that included insurance agencies, 
and a bank finally led Maria to make the decision to go out on her 
own. She remembered the time when her corporate boss did not see fit 
to support a move to do her MBA as the point when she took her fate 
into her own hands. She left that world of business to embark on what 
would become an exciting and prosperous adventure.
The Family That Plays Together
One of the motivating factors that got Maria up and out of her bed 
every morning for a decade was the vision that she had for her young 
family’s life. When she worked with the Water Authority, she had to be 
on the radio or television, or get busy putting out communications to 
the public in order to keep people abreast of the decisions that the com-
pany made from day to day. Maria explained that she more than once 
“missed that all important occasion” with her family and said to her-
self, “I have a young family. I need to be looking for a job that is much 
more controlled.” The young president did not come from a family of 
entrepreneurs, unlike Manley, who was a son of two business people 
and an attorney with his own practice. Maria explained that her family 
“all had a mindset that the most secure and safe job is working with 
the government or working with a healthy corporation.” The idea of 
setting up shop as an independent entity in order to have control over 
one’s life was, as Maria saw it early on, “a very risky route.”
Over the years that Maria has carved out her business and become 
a respected presence in the public relations field, Manley has seen her 
blossom into “a personal friend to her children.” He observed that 
despite “long hours” and the fact that Maria “comes in very, very late” 
on most days “she has been able to create a balance” and that “our 
family knows that she is always there” for them.
Maria admitted that Manley “is the support and the rock. Anything 
I want to do, is fine! If I want to put a horn on my head, he will probably 

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help me put it there!” She has come to understand, after many years of 
sacrifice and climbing the ladder to stability, that family life is “critical” 
and that “these [relationships] are the important things.” This resonates 
with Manley’s belief that at a specific point in their marriage, Maria was 
his “best friend” and that they built “a very good relationship” which 
supports both their careers and their children’s development as well-
rounded people.
When Maria pointed out some of the benefits that have accrued 
to her family because of her hard work in the public relations field, 
she recalled the instances when the children were treated to visits to a 
very expensive hotel where she had done work for the owners. Maria 
said that she heard her daughter, Chanel, explaining to someone that 
“Oh, don’t think that we have paid for it sweetheart!” This was at one 
point when the family was staying at the hotel for a short holiday. 
Chanel went on to say that “Mommy knows the people.” So Maria 
knew that her daughter was “not pretending that we are these rich 
folks and that we have gone to this [hotel] because we have all this 
money.” This incident involving her daughter also represented a basic 
fact of Maria’s working life with her employers across the island. She 
boasted about her feeling that “I respect them and they respect me 
and we have a good time.” Employers at every level of Maria’s busi-
ness interactions have “opened doors” for her so that her children 
“have had the benefit of birthday parties at the hotel for which I pay a 
[minimal fee] or nothing at all.” These “privileges that go with these 
things that help to give you an orientation for life in another realm 
per se,” are counted among the many perks that accrue to Manley, 
Maria, and their children.
Manley, her husband, has told people that he is “on the road with 
the family” rather than explain that he is enjoying a “free” room at an 
expensive hotel because of his wife’s business connections. As far as 
Manley was concerned, “irrespective of how you explain to them that 
it is a result of my [wife’s] relationship, that is not going to erase this 
notion that you are rich and you are high flying,” and that you belong 
to a class above those with whom you generally rub shoulders. Maria 
believed that “it’s good that [her family] can enjoy it. It is also good that 

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they don’t get airs and graces as a result of enjoying it. [The children] 
are fairly grounded.”
Hard work paid off for the family when Maria was able to see her 
daughter, Chanel, graduate from a college in the USA and put her son, 
Denzel, through a private school on the island where he was born. The 
dream of seeing their children get to college slowly materialized as Maria 
found her place in the public relations world. Maria learned after many 
years that she was “working hard but smarter.” This allowed her to give 
“some time to the kids.” When her daughter, Chanel, made the Dean’s 
List, Maria reported that “the only thing that I haven’t done is put an 
ad[vertisement] in the paper!” She also explained that Denzel, her son, 
who was away at boarding school, was “reconnecting with everything 
‘home’” and that he considered studying at the University of the West 
Indies. The children have different personalities and each brought their 
own individual strengths to the relationship with their mother. Accord-
ing to Maria “it all makes for a harmonious and close-knit family.”
The “One-Room” Years
Maria said with confidence that “I have staff that do a lot of the physical 
work. But also because we have the internet and the fax and so, you don’t 
even physically have to deliver anything. Some [document]s you deliver. 
But even the photos now, I can scan them and send them … along.” She 
said this while she sat in her office at the Jamaica Premier hotel where 
she had “two suites” in order to serve the hotel and her personal clients. 
She beamed with pleasure as she explained: “I can trace some growth in 
my personal development and in my professional development.” This 
ability to deliver an estimation of her progress in her business comes at 
the end of the first ten years of hard, uphill climbing.
In the first years that Maria put out her shingle for business she 
rented a small room and “stayed in that little 10 X 10” until we couldn’t 
hold anymore.” Her first employee “shared that 10 X 10”! My desk on 
the left, hers on the right.” They looked at each other all through the day. 
Maria “had a typewriter, thank you very much. Not even a computer!” 
The business executive started work very early every day that she was 

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open for business and left the office by 3:00 pm, since she “knew that I 
had to get the stuff in by 5:00 pm.” This was dictated by the fact that she 
had to meet the deadline appointed by “the newspaper and the media 
and the electronic media” in order to get news out by the next day. She 
likened her work routine as the ticking of a “time bomb.” Maria had the 
routine down to four steps that included: “Type up this. Do this. Type the 
envelopes. Do all the calls I needed to call. 3:00 through that door with 
that bag over my shoulder with all these things.” The luxury of the use 
of a fax machine or the internet was not part of her working world. Maria 
had to “physically deliver the stuff to all the media houses” of which 
there were “seven” on her list and “they weren’t all on the same street.” 
She had to get in her car, face the traffic along the way, and do all of the 
deliveries of the press kits before she got home to her family.
In those early years Maria was able to get clients on her own, and 
those included national and international reputations. She said that she 
also made “more than I had ever earned working for anybody else! Be it 
a corporation or for the government.” She was able to pay for her rent, 
“car and bought all the material I required.” The result of this hard work 
and her practical approach to building the business was that she was able 
to “employ two people and to move into a larger space,” and she bought 
“computers and stuff like that.” Manley was not surprised at his wife’s 
success over the first years since he thought that “she just works and 
works and works at it” and he considered her “a workaholic.” What he 
has witnessed in his wife over the years of her becoming her own boss is 
that she had “more confidence” by the end of the first decade in business. 
He pointed out that “when she just started, she wasn’t so sure that she 
would succeed. I knew she would, but she had some self-doubts there.”
It was also important for Manley to point out that his wife, Maria, 
is not a Jamaican by birth. Over time, in her work life and her personal 
life, she became “well-known and well respected … especially in the 
media.” What Maria did was considered “amazing” by her husband 
and close associates, since she won over her Jamaican clients and they 
passed on the news of her good work to other corporations on the island 
and overseas. Maria recounted one story when she was recommended 
for a job by a person who described her as “a Trinidadian girl” who 

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“has a little agency.” That description led to the next thing and she got 
a call from a business representative who said, “Can you come and talk 
with me?” At this recollection, Maria celebrated the fact that business 
in the Caribbean is based on personal relationships. In the early days 
she did not dare think about leaving a client unattended for any length 
of time. She was always conscious of the fact that the client would get 
jittery and need to be in touch with her at every step of a project. Today, 
Maria explained, “if a client calls to the office here in Kingston and I am 
in New York” she can simply reach them by phone or e-mail. Technol-
ogy has been a boon to the independent businesswoman. Maria was 
diligent in assuring every client that if they were “really feeling nervy, 
they can call me up” and get her feedback on a situation even if she 
were out of the country at the time.
Starting out as an undergraduate at the University of the West 
Indies when she first arrived in Jamaica, Maria went on to earn a bach-
elor’s degree and, later, a master’s degree from a foreign university. 
She worked in journalism for five years, moved on to public relations 
in the private sector and public area, and spent more than a decade in 
her own public relations firm. The philosophy that undergirded this 
successful venture is described in this reflection that Maria shared:
The relationships you have formed with other people, you are the one that 
they trust. You are the one that they feel is the reservoir of all the information. 
So, irrespective of how many other MBA’s you employ, how many Ph.D.’s 
you employ, [the client] expects you to do their work. And if you don’t do it 
personally, some how they feel slighted, that you have gone off to do another 
project that you think is more important than their own project. So you have 
to do some little personal interface, even if it is just to go to the meeting with 
one of the other executives and leave early. But at least you would have come 
and given your two cents’ worth.
The Writing Rituals
Ce Ce, a close friend of Maria’s, described the entrepreneur as “some-
body who is focused” and a person who “has her head together.” This 
is the result of Maria being able to produce work that others in her 

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business respect and recommend to people who want to hire a public 
relations firm with a strong track record of success. Maria said that she 
gets to the office by 8 a.m., after she has had a good workout at the 
gym, and starts working on the items on her list. She is responsible 
for “the marketing and the development of the project … [in order] to 
promote a client.” Maria writes speeches and sets up the press kits for 
the media who will attend an event. She has found that “it is a bit of a 
harrowing responsibility sometimes, in that you want to press on and 
do something else that you know a junior member of staff can do” but 
the client expects Maria to do the job. After being the “chief cook and 
bottle washer” for the first five years of the company’s growth, Maria 
felt that she had “earned” the space to hand over some of the tasks for 
a project to her young associates.
Maria’s writing tasks may include writing speeches, “a press 
release to write … photos to caption” and doing research on the com-
puter. Preparing to attend meetings that are usually quite long is also 
an involved process since Maria has to review files to get herself reac-
quainted with the decisions that were made the last time that she met 
with the client’s team. The former journalist explained that she felt that 
she was “back in journalism. I am writing for media. It’s just that no 
media house is paying me.” With the number of press releases that she 
has had to produce, it made sense that she was convinced that “one of 
my major strengths in all that I do is my writing ability.” The fact that 
she has this training from her first university degree in communica-
tions, and the experiences of actually working at one island’s leading 
newspaper, affords her a vantage point that serves her clients well in 
the promotion of their profiles to the public. The writer explained that 
she had “a fairly good idea of what makes news and what doesn’t 
make news. How you have to frame it to make news.” Ce Ce, her close 
professional friend, was not the least reserved when she stated that 
Maria “was on par. She had the literary skills. She knew what she was 
doing” because she started off with a position in the prime minister’s 
office in Trinidad, and then moved on to a major newspaper outlet 
on another island, before becoming a respected authority on public 
relations.

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Maria’s spouse, Manley, easily recalled one government minister 
who would not do any presentations without his wife’s input. He also 
remembered a time when he “was at this conference … and this par-
ticular speech was given by one of [Maria’s] clients. Everybody was 
talking about it. I wished that I could just come out and say that it 
was written by my wife! But of course I could not. It was the talk of 
the whole country!” Manley regretted that he had to keep the truth to 
himself because that is the protocol that is followed in the public rela-
tions business. He also divulged that Maria “would never have it any 
other way.” Even when Manley had to convince Maria to stick with 
one project, where another public relations firm was trying to bully 
her into making decisions that she could not honestly support, Manley 
admitted that his spouse was impressive in the professional way in 
which she handled the situation. This confidence came from the fact 
that Maria was “still not writing any RFPS.” She knew that “people talk 
to each other. There is a lot of continuous work as a result of the good 
work that you would have done.” Maria accepted the fact that “you 
have to perform and perform and perform again.” And this fact kept 
the professional working at the top of her ability for every client.
Among the many notable projects that Maria was proud to recount 
was her work on behalf of the HIV/AIDS information organizations. 
She described how “they were asking me to do things that I could do, 
which was to get the information first of all, put it into some kind of 
palatable format and go and present it at workplaces and try to get 
people to develop workplace policies that a) tried to help prevent 
their workers from getting HIV/AIDS. But more specifically to deal 
fairly with employees who may present with the problem.” This was 
a life-changing journey, according to Maria, because it taught her a lot 
about the disease and the many prejudices that people had to face if 
they found themselves suffering with any of the symptoms associated 
with the virus. The writing of material for different levels of the society 
led Maria to a new understanding that revealed what she had to know 
when “dealing with them and their mindset and their attitudes and 
learning more about … corporate Jamaica.” Coming to own the per-
spective that wealth does not protect people from ignorant views was 

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a life lesson that Maria felt was what “helped me not just in business, 
but on a social level.”
The next projects that loomed on the businesswoman’s horizon 
were books. One publication that she planned to do was tied to the 
history of a particular financial institution. She wanted to describe fifty 
years of growth and present the book at the celebration of the institu-
tion’s anniversary when all the members of the company and other 
dignitaries were on hand for the commemoration ceremony. Maria 
gave herself one year to get the book completed with interviews and 
pictures from the archives of the institution. Another book on her to 
do list, Maria enthused, “celebrates the achievements of hoteliers that 
have won some specific awards” and she planned to get proper fund-
ing for the publication. The hotel association, according to Maria, is 
“more excited than I am!” They wanted to celebrate their history, and 
Maria felt that since they had been her clients from the very beginning 
of her independent business career, it would combine her success story 
and the celebration of the association’s progress. She confided that 
when she sees “that book and I can touch it and feel it, and see it with 
my name there, I will feel that I have done well, too.”
The enthusiasm that Maria felt for her job and the wish to make 
her clients happy inspired the approach that she took when she inter-
viewed young people who were seeking employment with her com-
pany. She insisted that the applicants had a “basic knowledge of how 
to write, even if [they] … have had no PR training per se, writing ability 
and a personality that is engaging, energetic, interested” was what she 
was looking for. Her workers, as well as her clients, are made to under-
stand that the writers “have to look for an angle that is news and … 
have to write a newsworthy piece or it’s not going to get [in the news-
paper].” The media outlets, Maria emphasized, “get hundreds of arti-
cles every day and for yours to [get their attention], it has to be topical.” 
This is a fact that she gleaned from her work at the newspaper where 
she earned a byline in the national publication. She insisted that people 
who represent her public relations firm have “an absolute command of 
English” since she did not “have the time to be editing people’s work to 
make sure that the verbs and the subjects match.” She made allowances 

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“for people’s basic style” and she didn’t “expect them to write like I 
write, but […] certainly expect them to write intelligently so people can 
understand.” Maria has always asked prospective employees to send 
something that they have written before she meets with them. When 
they are invited to interview at the firm, it is because the boss wanted 
“to hear how they speak because they may well send me something 
that somebody else has written.”
In the years when Maria was growing up, she reminisced, she would 
hear her mother direct her to “sit down there and do your homework. 
When you are finished you can get up.” This early training, to be still 
and complete a task before moving on to another activity, has paid off 
in Maria’s professional life. She explained that “Sometimes I am like, 
‘Oh, God! I have to write all of those things and do this and do this, 
and do this’.” But, she smiled and continued, “once you start doing it, 
it goes like clockwork!” She has not ever given into the temptation to 
do what she described as “hyperventilating” because time and again 
“it all got done” by the deadline that she had set. The training in the 
newsroom had also seasoned her so that she worked from the belief 
that “you tackle one [thing] after the other, after the other, after the 
other.” She found herself, many times, seated at her desk from “6:00 
a.m. straight down to 5:00 p.m.” The pressure never discouraged her 
because she always made a way to “get it all done! Finished.”
What the Future Holds
A commitment to truth, to informing people of the facts, and allowing 
them to make choices, is the bedrock on which Maria built her busi-
ness. As she explained, “my whole mantra is to tell the truth and give 
as much information as possible so that people can be informed and by 
being informed, they can make intelligent decisions and form intelli-
gent attitudes.” This practical approach to communicating at the highest 
level possible cast its shadow when Maria talked about the possibility 
of her daughter, Chanel, joining her public relations firm. She said with 
a smile in her voice, “[my daughter] will start where [the other employ-
ees] start, do what they do, I will probably send her on assignment with 

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someone else so that they can give her an orientation and so on and 
we will take it from there, but she certainly is not coming in as vice 
president.” Maria’s daughter would have to be grounded in the firm’s 
philosophy if she was going to be a dependable and productive part of 
the public relations machinery that her mother ran.
Manley, Maria’s devoted husband, sees a bright future with even 
more accolades accumulating to Maria and her associates at the firm. 
He boasted that “She hasn’t proved me wrong at all [on my bet that 
she would be successful] …. I see the potential” and he wished that 
she would hire more staff to handle the workload that she was already 
balancing. He hoped that Maria would gain “some big annual con-
tracts” so that she could plan her life and have more time to herself and 
the family. Because of “the workload that she does, and the amount 
of traveling she does” it would not be feasible, Manley thought, for 
Maria to keep up the pace that she had set since the start of the com-
pany when she had three contracts. “I don’t know how she does all 
that stuff! All that she has been able to do so far,” Manley opined. But 
Maria’s response to the kind of reaction that others have had to her 
outstanding success and the rate of growth that she had accomplished 
over ten years was predictable. As far as the seasoned professional was 
concerned: “the passion that you bring to your work doesn’t dissipate 
even when you think you are on or near a plateau, and certainly in our 
business, you are as good as your last project, so there is still risk in 
handing over anything to anyone.” When your name is on the busi-
ness, Maria exclaimed, “where you are your company everything is 
very personal and people relate your company to you—the passion 
that you bring, the knowledge that you bring” is what drives the busi-
ness and keeps it alive and prosperous.
What Maria wanted most out of life and her career, she said, was 
“to be all the things I’ve ever wanted to be. To be a mother. To be a wife 
and to be an entrepreneur.” Manley echoed that ambition in the reflec-
tion that the husband and wife had a “dream that we both share … to 
see our children to the university and get their degrees.” The engine 
behind Maria’s ambition is fueled by the memory of one government 
minister’s comment to her when she decided to start her own business. 

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She remembered him saying that “Nobody leaves income for if-come.” 
This memory often came back to her when she gained a new interna-
tional contract, like the European Airlines client, and especially when 
she met that very government minister in different meetings and social 
events. At that time, it was clear to Maria that she lived in a society 
where “people never feel you leave a job that pays you well and gives 
you perks.” She does not know if that man remembered ever making 
that comment early in her career, but she always smiled to herself when 
she saw him. He gave her a lot of fuel, she understood, to get herself 
well-situated in her business and to maintain the high level of produc-
tivity that she has accomplished.
Going after an MBA with a focus on marketing has opened new 
vistas for Maria. She determined that “this whole MBA thing, this whole 
new vision, has encouraged me to go after the sort of projects that nor-
mally would not have come my way. I would not have thought I had 
much ability in terms of the entertainment area because I’ve never been 
involved in that area, but I recognized that the knowledge and skills I 
have can be applied to just about anything” and she wants to promote 
the Caribbean. With the belief that “if you are in a box, you have put 
yourself there,” Maria forged ahead and won a contract to represent an 
internationally recognized musician from Jamaica. Her mantra about 
the Caribbean is that “our culture, transcends every level of society. It 
is what is so rich and powerful and I think it is fabulous, it’s fantastic.” 
This enthusiasm brought her to Ethiopia where she saw the seeds of 
her hard work as a public relations manager for a famous musician 
bring together people from all over the world to celebrate Caribbean 
culture. It was proof positive that she had made the right choice to 
move her sights beyond the island where her firm had its roots, and 
take the message about the jewel that is the Caribbean to the world.
The classroom is another setting where Maria finds that she can 
use her excellent communication skills to promote a positive way of 
thinking and acting in the world. She talked about her foray into the 
educational field when she described her experience: “I quite like the 
classroom. And especially I find these students are so bright with all 
the resources that they have at their fingertips, the news media, the 

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internet, websites. They are really very, very sharp, and they keep you 
on your toes” and that meant that Maria had to make sure that she 
came to that instruction site with information ready in her head, not 
depending on a book. What she has done her best to impart to the stu-
dents is the philosophy that guides her daily practice in the field: “if 
people understand your vision and your mission,” she explained in 
her teacher mode, “they are more likely to support you, so even those 
who don’t have a consumer product to sell, those who are in education 
and those who are in politics and those who are in social activities, 
civic activities, understand, too, that it is necessary to communicate 
with people, especially if you want to encourage behavior change.” 
She has also begun drafting a book that could be used in these educa-
tional settings. “I am nowhere near the halfway mark,” she explained. 
The drafting process “has sort of steered me in a particular course, and 
sort of clarified the vision for what I need to do.” There were ideas 
that she began with that “couldn’t quite fly” and she had to adjust this 
approach to the material after “talking with people and interviewing 
people” so that she “streamlined the course” and understood what she 
needed to do in order for the book to be completed.
There are also plans for Maria to keep her life in balance. She reg-
ularly books her ticket to Trinidad so that she can enjoy the Carnival 
festivities. She smiled when she announced that, “I have a ticket. I have 
a costume. I am going. Punto final.” This is her new approach to her 
work/life culture, honed after ten years of keeping up the business in 
the face of all challenges while she was on or off the island. She “deter-
mined that there are certain things that I will do, most definitely, albeit 
that I have to work long hours to be able to afford to take off, and I find 
that I am not regretful about the time that I need to spend, if I need to 
be here from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., so that I can go off for three days.” She 
declared with gusto, “It is worth it to me.”
What does Ce Ce, Maria’s longtime friend in the business, believe 
about Maria the business dynamo who she met early in her career as 
a journalist? Ce Ce enthused that: “I just think that she has used her 
capacities. She has just moved along and has transformed herself as 
well as her business. She is always on the move, on … go!” This was 

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the forecast for Maria’s future, Ce Ce predicted, and it echoed Manley’s 
appreciation of his wife. “She has far more to accomplish. This lady 
has not yet tapped into all of her resources. She has tremendous pos-
sibilities.” Manley continued with his prediction: “I am confident that 
even from where she is now, as much progress as she made, I think she 
will make, probably in the next ten years, even more progress.” And 
by what means would Maria move along this trajectory that her close 
friend and spouse predicted for her career? She was energized by the 
belief that “culture is what makes us special in the Caribbean,” as she 
quoted a former Minister of Tourism. She decided that she wanted to 
do a lot of “work in the Caribbean.” And since the Caribbean culture 
insists on the interpersonal relationships as the foundation of all busi-
ness transactions, “relationships are very important … [the culture is] 
very personality based,” Maria is poised to do phenomenally well in 
the region of the world where she was born and raised. As she stated 
in her rationale for returning to school to get her MBA, Maria made it 
abundantly clear that she was prepared to realize her vision:
There are new ways to do stuff. A professor said that if you are doing what 
you are doing the same exact way for five years, you are doing something 
wrong. I believe that he is correct. I believe that you have to be reinventing 
yourself and re-energizing yourself. So even looking at my work now, there 
are some things that I have determined I wanted to do.

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Chapter 3
Gee and Her Floral
Arranging Life
Over fifty years ago, Gee moved to Jamaica with her husband and two 
children. He was on assignment from Trinidad, as a manager of the 
national airline’s office. The first of eight children, and an active member 
in keeping her family together in spite of the fact that her siblings lived 
in different countries, Gee found it difficult to leave her home island. 
However, the thrill of being at the side of her spouse as he created a 
legacy in the airline industry helped her to overcome her reluctance to 
uproot her children and raise them in what at the time was considered 
“foreign territory.” Being a people person, Gee made friends in those 
first years who have lasted the entire time that she has lived in Jamaica. 
She is now eighty-nine years old, and keeps up with buddies who are 
in their seventies and eighties, as part of a flower club, church groups, 
and neighborhood coteries that still remember “the good old days.”
Gee came with her family to the island and began a lifelong journey 
in the floral arranging business. Her friend of over fifty years, Betty, 
remembered meeting Gee soon after they began working at an interna-
tional firm in Kingston, Jamaica. As a young woman who had recently 
married, Betty remembered meeting Gee as “the first person that I was 

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introduced to” on July 13, 1964. It was a “memorable day” for Betty. 
And she has kept Gee as a mentor, guide, and surrogate sister. She 
believes that Gee is “more than anything else, my friend” and that was 
what has sustained their relationship over these decades. This assess-
ment of Gee is based on the fact that these two women, according to 
Betty, “have been through thick and thin together” and the friendship 
“has been as strong to this day as it was when it first started, a long, 
long time ago.”
The successful florist, Gee, described herself as someone who loves 
her family, people who she “loves to have … around all the time,” 
and sports. She remembered that her grandmother, Granny Miranda, 
always had the grandchildren “fix flowers every weekend for the 
house.” This was how she first started to be “garden conscious” and 
it carried over as a hobby when she moved to Jamaica to live with her 
husband, his mother, and their two children. After living a short time 
in her new country, the idea came to her that she should do a course in 
flower arranging, so she enrolled with Miss Elle who had returned from 
England and decided to start teaching courses. The school was con-
ducted in the teacher’s house and it turned out that Gee did well with 
the beginner’s course and graduated to the advanced level. The florist 
described the experience as “a lot of fun!” In contrast to this response to 
the adventure was the feeling that the flower arranging activity “filled 
a void” later on in her life soon after she lost her daughter.
The desire to nurture and have a positive impact on a young person 
led Gee and her husband, Simon, to take in a young boy and raise him 
in their home. Deva, the young man who has been in touch with Gee 
over forty years, has one very strong memory of Gee’s mothering when 
he was in his teens. According to Deva, he was not feeling well one day 
in his teens and Gee spent time at his bedside feeding and attending to 
him as his illness progressed. He recollected with tenderness that “the 
whole night, [Gee] made hot beverages, soup and everything, and she 
stayed right there until I was okay. She made sure throughout the night 
I was fine.”
After Gee decided to retire from her ten-year collaboration as a flo-
rist with a business partner, Allison, she started doing “just a little” 

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work for her friends. Her idea was that she could do arrangements for 
“hospitals, for people, for birthdays, anniversaries” and to make a little 
extra money because of the bad state of the economy at the time. She 
also “got involved with other members of the clubs” so that she could 
work for special occasions when “somebody … gets jobs for weddings, 
functions” and other occasions that would lead to her doing “work 
for two days.” Gee saw this as a good financial arrangement since she 
didn’t have the “full responsibility of getting everything and its fun.” 
As she recalled, “Flower arrangement is delightful, but it is very stress-
ful when you have deadlines. Two weddings in a day and a function … 
and something else. So, it is stress all the time.” After a while, she was 
glad to take a break from that lifestyle and stay home with her then-ail-
ing husband.
The Business Partnership
After retiring from her job at an international agency, Gee “felt like 
taking it easy.” The business lady recalled that the partnership with 
Allison lasted for ten years. Allison was a retired biology teacher, and 
Gee was retired from a career that included doing accounting at her 
employer’s office. Allison recalled that: “Gee and I were friends. She 
[was] about to retire and I hate to do books. [Hated anything to do with] 
accounts and money.” Allison believed that she “was not a good busi-
ness woman” so she was glad when Gee said that she would handle the 
accounts for the flower arranging business.
Allison described herself as a teacher who stayed in the classroom 
for a decade and then decided to open her own floral arranging busi-
ness. She had been in that business for twenty years, half of the time 
she collaborated with Gee as a business partner. She has represented 
Jamaica at international flower shows in France, New Zealand, South 
Africa, and Canada. Allison was also invited to judge floral compe-
titions in several countries. Her most memorable show was done in 
South Africa because she did a demonstration “before an audience of 
4,000 people.” She explained further that over twenty years ago “when 
the World Association of Flower Arrangers was started …. I was asked 

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to do the very first world show.” She was asked to do a demonstration 
and refused to do it because South Africa was then an apartheid country.
Allison smiled as she proudly recounted: “Twenty-one years later, I am 
again asked to do [a demonstration]” and she was glad to agree since 
the country had dismantled the apartheid policy.
How does Allison think about the business collaboration that she 
shared with Gee? It is easy to discern her respect for her former ally in 
the kinds of memories that she shared. The first is a character descrip-
tion of Gee: “She was more in plan with books and business. I was 
more in plan with style and concepts. It was a good mix.” Also, as an 
international judge for flower arranging shows, Allison is mindful to 
state that Gee “tends to not have all the confidence she needs. She is 
better than she thinks she is. From the floristry point of view, I think she 
is okay, but she … is not too confident that she is doing the right thing. 
But she is, in most instances.” On the other hand, Betty, the lifelong 
friend of Gee’s, has come to think of the artist as “a kind of perfection-
ist.” She elaborated on this point of view with these comments about 
her mentor:
[Gee] would never let a piece of work [leave her unless she was] completely 
satisfied with it. But at the same time, she’s … on the top of her game yes, 
but not competitively. There is still, how can I put it? Some soul and spirit in 
there that the other florists don’t have. The other florists I find tend to be more 
commercial. You can see that [the arrangement] is too rigid or … it doesn’t 
have the flow and the spirituality that Gee’s floral arrangements tend to have.
Gee’s “adopted son,” Deva, also talked about “the love” that Gee 
expressed through her floral arranging. He emphasized that “she loved 
flowers. And no matter what happens, she could use flowers to com-
fort [herself] … [it] probably was therapy. And she does handle her 
flower business like it’s a therapy.” This was his point of view after 
living with Gee and helping out in her business for some thirty years. 
Deva has been alongside Gee long enough that when he looks at floral 
arrangements he wonders “if she looks at it, what would she see differ-
ent?” He never believes that the existing floral arrangement is perfect, 
“wherever I go and I see flower arrangements, I have to stop, look at it, 
think about it, and think of her.”

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Another of the commendations that Gee has earned from both 
friends, Allison and Betty, is the gift that she has with figures. Her 
former business partner, Allison, mentioned that Gee was “a more 
careful spender.” The master florist described Gee’s attitude as one 
that declared: “It’s not my thing, so I am going to be careful and think 
of somebody else” when she had to make financial decisions. This 
seemed to be in direct contrast to the attitude of Allison who was more 
concerned about making a splash with “style and concepts.” And out 
of this relationship, one person focused on the accounts and the other 
making waves with their designs, the team forged a strong reputation 
among clients. Allison recounted her perspective on the inroads that 
the company made in the hotel industry when she declared that the 
team was “among the first to decorate big hotels with a theme. A lot 
of people are doing it now. I don’t suppose that we will ever get any 
official recognition of that. But we know that that’s a fact! So I would 
say that contribution, to me, is important.”
Allison remembered that Gee’s husband, Simon, “was very encour-
aging” when the two ladies began their company. The two florists “were 
very, very uncertain …. Very doubtful” about their abilities. Allison 
believed that they had to “give him full credit for his encouragement 
over the time [that they ran the company].” As the business evolved, 
people passed on the word that the two women did good work. The 
international artist claimed that they “got a lot of work through people 
seeing what we had done.” It was what she called “the better advertise-
ment because they have seen it. They like it. And they want something 
like that.” In her estimation, “it maybe was not … a good business prac-
tice,” but it certainly supported the growth of the company over many 
years. At the end of the day, Allison believed that the business might 
“have changed some things but basically … we would [not] change our 
association and that is important.”
The business collaboration ended when Gee felt that “it was get-
ting a bit stressful for my age.” Her husband, Simon, was at home and 
his health was not doing well. She felt that she should focus on her 
home and spend time “with him for whatever years he had left.” It is 
important that Simon’s role in the life of the flower arranging journey 

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be understood. From Betty’s perspective, Simon was invaluable to 
the evolution of Gee’s commitment to this creative passion with floral 
arranging. Betty explained:
[Simon] was what everyone would call a perfect florist husband. He was with 
her head and head. He would deliver. He would take down. He would pick 
up. He would go here, there and everywhere with her. Alongside her, every 
step of the way. As a matter of fact, I remember distinctly, they had a flower 
show up at University and the men were invited to do an arrangement. Simon 
surprised us all and at the same time, it wasn’t a surprise because all these 
years he had been watching, even criticizing his wife on occasion, I think. I 
think he was one of her critics too. He won first prize for the men that year.
Betty also recalled that Simon knew the “mechanics” of building an 
arrangement. He knew that he had to make sure “that it doesn’t fall 
and flop … that when they are put it in the car, they don’t topple over.” 
Most importantly, Simon was there after the crowds were gone and 
the other ladies in the club had packed up and left the site. Gee could 
always depend on the fact that Simon “was there by her side.”
In Deva’s mind, as a resident of Gee’s home for over twelve years, 
Simon would prepare the products. He would go pick the flowers up, 
have them delivered, “go around and get all the ingredients, whether it’s 
the baskets … the flowers, the wires, he will source out all of the mate-
rial.” Gee would put them together and Simon would help her “if there’s 
a situation where the basket would need to be wrapped, he would help 
her wrap them. If it needed to be painted, he would do that as well.”
With this kind of support from both her and Gee’s family, it was 
clear to Allison that the team, “never set out to get rich out of it. We 
wanted to make a living. We have helped a lot of people and money is 
always important. But I don’t think that was the main focus.”
The Flower Clubs
Miss Elle, who started the flower arranging school, “decided she 
would start a flower arranging club.” The club has grown and is now 
approximately forty-three years old. The idea behind the club was that 

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the members would “do things for charity” and “have workshops 
and every year … have [a] fundraiser.” The club evolved to the point 
where they now give “scholarships to the agricultural school for [a] 
boy or girl” and that winner would be allowed to study with the club 
for a year. The members of this club, along with other clubs, have to 
do courses and are qualified to “judge at all the flower shows that they 
have” in the country.
Among the many precious memories that Gee holds are those that 
include the “free work” for hospitals, the university, different charita-
ble functions, and those jobs that were done for Highness House when 
Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret visited Jamaica. The charities 
that were served by the flower club included the cancer society and 
children’s homes. The fund-raisers are set up as flower shows and the 
displays are spread out throughout the hotel where the event is held. 
Sometimes a brunch is sold as part of the proceedings. Gee recollected 
that the cost of the flowers could add up to thousands of dollars and a 
church festival might cost “up to $3000 for the group to put it on” even 
though the flower club makes nothing from the event.
Training for Members
There were steps in the development of Gee’s expertise with floral 
design. She lists the approach used by Miss Elle when she recounted 
her days of training: “We did basic arrangements as a triangle. Then you 
would have a symmetrical, [and] an asymmetrical. Then you would go 
on later to bigger arrangements.” The last stage of the school’s program 
put an emphasis on creative work. Gee explained that “they would 
give you a theme and you had to interpret what that theme meant, 
in your own way.” The basis of that philosophy of teaching was that 
“everybody interprets differently,” so students had free reign with the 
use of materials and the staging of their final productions.
When Gee worked at her home, she continued to follow the first 
steps for any newcomer who was learning to “condition your flow-
ers.” Gee explained that “You don’t just buy them at the wholesale” 
and then use them in an arrangement. “You soak them up for a couple 

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of hours … soak them up properly. It is guaranteed that the flowers 
should last your customer some time.” She lamented that she doesn’t 
believe that all the flower shops do that first step in the process. She 
made it clear that the class she attended at Miss Elle’s school “trained 
… you [to] condition your flowers.” This strict code of procedure 
was also bolstered by her former business partner, Allison, when 
she stated that “you can’t use anything that is jaded. You must use 
fresh flowers all the time.” The business perspective of both of these 
mature artists is simple: “You can’t send anything out [to clients] that 
is not top quality.”
The next thing that a novice florist has to learn how to do is to set up 
the containers. Allison believes that “To someone out of the craft, you 
are not aware that these things are important. But it is very important 
because that is what is call the mechanics.”
“That is what [decides] how stable your creation [is],” and it dictates 
the condition in which it is delivered to your customer. Gee explained 
that she would move on to teaching the art of “arranging, seeing that 
[the student learned] the basic triangle and other things” and finally, 
“they can go on to more creative stuff.” This creative approach would 
include the practice of developing a theme and expressing a clear idea 
in the design of the flowers. Students, according to Gee’s experience, 
“are taught that you must try and use, if you can’t buy expensive things, 
… what you have.” All the florists who have worked along with her at 
shows and exhibits were encouraged to “go in your garden and look 
for things that could work … to save the cost” of buying expensive, 
imported flowers.
Another step in the journey of this master florist was the process 
of learning to do pedestal arrangements. Volunteering at her church 
over the years was a good experience for Gee. She explained that the 
floral design “is a big, basic triangle arrangement with lots of flowers.” 
Through many experiments she learned by trial and error that “it is 
better to do those on spot. Go to the church with all of your stuff and 
do it there.” If you have a station wagon, Gee explained, you can take 
the arrangement to the church. However, “when you get there,” Gee 

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advised, “you still have to break it up and put it into pieces … depend-
ing on the positioning of the arrangement.”
The business leader stated emphatically that “flower arranging 
is an art. It’s an art!” She believes this is true because the presenta-
tions that people create are based on “what you feel inside.” A show 
could include six arrangements in one class and “each person has a 
different interpretation” of the theme. Allison was insightful about 
this approach to the work in her statement that Gee and her fellow 
artists “try to convey happiness … [and they] just want somebody 
to be happy with what they’ve got” when an arrangement is deliv-
ered. As far as Gee’s assessment of her own level of creativity goes 
she believed that she can “learn plenty more!” since she worked with 
people who seemed to have an endless font of creative ideas. She 
described her reasons for judging herself as a low-grade artist in these 
terms: “I have to think for a day [about the way I am going to inter-
pret my theme]. Some of the other girls, you give a theme and right 
away they can come up with something. I would have to sit and think 
what I want and what should I do, ponder.” She remembered that her 
husband, Simon, when he was alive, would give her suggestions for 
her floral designs. Gee appreciated his level of involvement with her 
floral work and recollected how they “would knock … heads together 
and … come up with something” that they felt was a good interpre-
tation of a theme.
Allison, long-time friend and business partner, appreciated the 
fact that Gee has developed “a greater ability to interpret a theme.” 
Because the floral enthusiast has “had more exposure in the flower 
world … through the travel” that she described in her life with flow-
ers, Allison was convinced that her friend has “better technical skills 
in florestry” even though “there are some things that she still won’t 
attempt because she just has not practiced them enough, like making 
bridal bouquets.” Deva, her surrogate son, noted that he “never heard 
[Gee] complain about the price is not right …. Her thing is always to 
give the best” to her customers. He emphasized that “That was her 
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The Chelsea Journey
Mention the word “Chelsea” and Gee would glow with happy memo-
ries and start sharing a long list of recollections from her experiences as 
a team member of “the biggest show in the world.” She stated that she 
was “fortunate” to be chosen to represent Jamaica for three years. As far 
as Allison, the team leader, was concerned, Gee “is one of those people 
who make things good for you. Plus she is very helpful in terms of get-
ting things together. Passing on orders, as it were.” These orders would 
be made into requests to other people because of the way that Gee dealt 
with team members. Also, Allison appreciated that Gee “has her ability 
to arrange the flowers as well. She is a very valuable member of the 
team of six.” This analysis of Gee’s role on the national florestry team, 
and her general demeanor, echoed Betty’s description of her long-time 
friend: “She is a people’s person. There is no doubt about it.” This natu-
ral talent for making and maintaining good relationships has led Gee to 
make “some good friends from her clients,” and Betty confirmed that 
her mentor “always goes a little further … Gee will always go the extra 
mile” to get the job done well.
What happens before the team leaves Jamaica to represent the 
country at an international flower arranging event? Allison recounted 
one production process in these words:
We have an artist who does a sketch of what you want. You tell him the 
ideas, at least the coordinator does, and everybody chips in to suggest [their 
take on the theme] …. We have to send [the sketch] months, almost a year 
before [to the foreign organizers] … of what you are going to do, in color 
and everything. Name the exhibit …. After that now, you start to do a [mock 
up] in somebody’s back yard or big property. You keep doing trial-and-er-
ror, arranging and shift and shuffle, until you get whatever it is [you are 
depicting] right.
Unfortunately, Allison explained, “even when you get [to the event], it 
doesn’t work … exactly right.” Adjustments have to be made to stands, 
even though they were custom made, the heights may be wrong, and 
some could be too big. That means that the design has to be reorganized 
in the space that the team is allotted. Just as Gee had described her long 

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apprenticeship in learning to do pedestal arrangements, admitting that 
“it’s just difficult in the beginning until you do one and go on and prac-
tice” the long internship with the Jamaican national team proved that 
the development of skills for international competition “comes better 
with age.”
The shows, which were held in Kensington, England, in 2002 and 
2003, were the pinnacle of Gee’s ambitions for herself as an artist. She 
exclaimed, “I never expected that I would ever reach there!” Team 
members are expected to work hard, and Gee complained that “you 
work day and night” and it is even possible to work “into dawn some-
times.” Clearly, she reiterated, there is “nothing glamorous” about the 
event. She listed the activities that were related to presenting the floral 
displays for the exhibition as including the work that goes on for the 
five days before the show and arranging a big display, 15 x 15 foot, with 
all the tropicals from Jamaica.
Gee lamented that the members of the team always said that their 
feet hurt, that it was cold, that they were uncomfortable no matter 
what shoes were on their feet, you worked from “eight to eight for 
the show,” and, of course, you “soak in the tub when you get home 
in the night to recover for the next day.” The team members have to 
be on duty from the morning to “whenever in the night when you are 
mounting the show.” What made Gee a natural pick for the team on 
three occasions, according to Allison, was the fact that she is good at 
arranging. Also, it was clear to Gee that “if you’re not a hard worker, 
you cannot get on that team. They would never pick you.” Allison 
was the coordinator, the top person who does the delegating of assign-
ments, and she expected team members to finish off some part of the 
display that she started. The coordinator also made it clear that the 
team members “have to man the booths for eight hours a day! Stand-
ing all the time. [No one is] permitted to sit at our exhibit.” Finally, the 
team members have the responsibility of telling all the visitors who 
they meet from all over the world about Jamaica because the show is 
“a big thing for pushing the country.” The presenters have to tell the 
international guests about “the flowers that are grown, … [how] they 
are grown” and be good ambassadors for the island nation.

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The Home Business
The advantage of working from home, as Gee reflected on her journey 
as a sole proprietor, was connected to the fact that “you work as you 
want.” She became aware that if she could not “do something one day 
or don’t feel up to it, I just do what I can manage to do.” This reduced 
the stress level that she had come to associate with working in the busi-
ness with Allison. Gee understood that she didn’t have to do anything 
if she didn’t want to do it. By this same rubric, if “anybody calls and 
they are in trouble” it was easy to help out that business owner with 
their arrangements and deliveries. Gee explained how this worked in 
her best interest with the statement that “lots of times people get a call 
to do a function or something and it is a last minute thing” and they 
need additional hands to get the order done on time. At that point, if 
she got a call to join the friend’s team, she could choose whether she 
wanted to go or stay home and enjoy peace and quiet. Gee added that 
on some occasions, given her flexible schedule, “they might call me and 
I am free to go.”
How to describe the philosophy that underpinned Gee’s approach 
to her customers once she started her own business? The words of her 
close friend, Betty, are helpful in assessing the florist’s attitude to her 
chosen work: “Even when she is doing a wreath, she seems to check 
out the facts about the deceased person and make sure that he gets his 
favorite flower, or rose, or carnation, or orchid, or whatever it is she is 
making the wreath for. Every single thing that she does has her per-
sonal, undivided attention.” The level of investment that her customers 
got from her is one of the reasons that Gee decided to limit the amount 
of work that she would take on by herself.
Deva, who was always on hand to help Gee when he was living 
at her home or visiting the island on holiday from the USA, remem-
bered clearly that “she would have a driver who would come through. 
You know, somebody who could come help and deliver, someone she 
knows. It could be one of her friends that she has who would send the 
driver to help, so maybe one or two guys would come around and help 
for the delivery or pickup.” Some of Gee’s friends would also contact 

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the wholesale businesses and get them to deliver flowers to her house. 
However, there was no doubt in Deva’s mind and experience that 
“most of the help, it was all her. It was basically her doing pretty much 
everything” to keep the business running.
The artist explained the status of her business at one time in the 
comment that “it hasn’t really grown because I don’t stretch further 
than so many things that I know well.” She kept herself restricted to 
helping out friends and close associates from the bustling business 
days with Allison. Gee continued to detail her experiences when she 
shared the fact that “if a friend phones and says that I am asking you 
to do something for this special friend” alone then she would do it. The 
network of support that she earned over her career in the business of 
pleasing clients still has a hold on her loyalty. She is firm in her commit-
ment to her priorities and pointed out that she never let herself stretch 
beyond her time and budget. Her philosophy about taking on work as 
an independent business person was simple: “keep it to a minimum.” 
She was convincing when she said: “Well, I don’t think I would ever go 
into a big flower shop. I prefer the small at-home thing where you don’t 
have that stress of meeting deadlines.”
Thirty-five years in the business has reaped rewards that show up 
in the list of cautions that Gee shares with newcomers to the career 
in floral arranging. First, she warns new people to “Make sure that 
you don’t over-spend for one thing. You have to work out the value 
of your flowers and see that you make enough profit to cover your 
time, energy,” and other costs. The business woman further stated that 
“I try to aim to please all the time. If I can’t do what you want, I call 
you and let you know, ‘Well, this is not available. But I can get that.’” 
She found that the clients she served “just say, ‘go head.’” So that is 
how she has come to “work that way” and maintain the rapport that 
she has achieved with her customers. Working with the patrons, as a 
collaboration, is part of the philosophy that inspired the belief that she 
should not “send a bill at the same time” as the delivery, and that it is 
better to “send it a week after,” or even a month, from the time that the 
arrangement was delivered. After that, the client can “call me to say 
when to collect or I phone and say that I am coming to see if the money 

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is ready.” Gee found that “some people will tell you to come tomorrow. 
Others say not until the month’s end or not for another two weeks. You 
go along with that.” This policy ensured that Gee never had “a prob-
lem with collection.” From all reports though, she knew that collecting 
money is a big challenge in her business. Also, she was plainspoken 
when she divulged that she “must know who you are” if she decided 
to do a job for you and that this was the reason why she did not “take 
new customers because when I come with my bill, I get my money” as 
a result of her long-established relationships.
Another part of the business is doing public relations and service 
in the community. When she was running the flower shop with Allison 
she “never helped out except if it was a charity thing” since that was 
considered “bad policy” to donate her labor to another organization. 
Allison also supported a collaborative approach to customers in her 
words that “you try to give [customers] what they want.” It is good 
policy, Gee believed, to “ask if they want a special color if it is available 
because you can’t always get what you want.” Sometimes, too, a cus-
tomer wants “a special container, [and] you tell them what you have to 
offer.” When the client is sending a gift to sick people, Gee mentioned, 
it is a good idea to use flowers in “yellows and pinks. Nothing dull … 
to brighten them up.”
What are some of the signs of the kind of passion and artistry that 
Gee has been able to communicate to her customers? Betty remembered 
two occasions where the work that Gee did reaped healthy rewards in 
the way that the customers responded. The events included one time 
when Gee did an arrangement for an office member’s birthday. Accord-
ing to Betty, “this particular person shows no emotion under normal 
circumstances. She is always quiet. Never seems to get overly emo-
tional about anything, always Poker-faced, actually. When Gee came in 
the morning after her birthday, she couldn’t believe that it was a little 
bulldozer coming towards her. The way [the office mate] hugged and 
kissed [Gee] and said what a fantastic arrangement she had gotten for 
her birthday and how it really made her day.”
Another time, Betty reminisced, “A little girl of about eleven had 
died tragically and Gee had to make an arrangement for this little 

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girl. I think, if I am not mistaken, it was for her sister to put on the 
graveside.” Gee made this little girl “a basket of … pink carnations. It 
looked absolutely exquisite.” Betty knew that the mother of that child 
was “very touched about that little arrangement that the little girl took 
to the graveside of her sister.” This recollection also seemed to have a 
strong impact on Betty as she called up the memory in her mind’s eye 
and responded to the emotion with her body language.
Allison also supported the approach that helped the shop owners to 
“make some money” even though it might make the working conditions 
a little “tense” and more directed to the profit margin. She explained 
that experience has taught her, and Gee, that “you need to calculate your 
expenses more so, and relate them to … a figure that you might apply” 
to the charges to the customer. The business owners would double “the 
cost of the material in stock by two or three” to come up with a figure 
that covered their expenses. This was an approach that Allison admitted 
that she was never really “sensible enough to do” at her business.
Deva, Gloria’s adopted “son,” saw first-hand that the floral arrang-
ing business was not about “sitting down” and getting things done. He 
experienced at Gee’s side that: “You have to go to certain places to buy 
the flowers, you got to go buy the baskets, you have to buy the stuff—
the oasis, the wires, and sometimes you cannot get all these [things] in 
one place, you’ll only be able to get the flowers in one area, and then 
you have to drive to another area to do another set of flowers.” This 
became a big concern to him as he considered Gee’s age and physical 
safety over her later years. There came a time when he believed that “it 
was at a time that I didn’t want her to be on the road trying to move 
around to get the flowers. And secondly, her eyes were kind of getting 
a little out of hand and that was one of my main concerns.” Physically 
and mentally, Gee was doing quite well into her seventies, so she con-
tinued with her love for labor.
In the effort to describe the kinds of relationships that had to be 
developed with the clientele, Gee explained the fellowship with her 
church and the members in the parish where she lived:
I started doing church flowers for free. I was at the church and I was on duty 
every six weeks. With that, comes that experience because you do … what 

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you feel from the inside. You just do your own thing. There is nobody who is 
able to tell you are breaking the rule, it should be here, at this angle. You just 
do what you feel like.
This volunteer work helped the artist to develop her creative flair and 
built up word of mouth among the church members who worked with 
her, or enjoyed the arrangements in the chapel after she had put them 
up for services. After a long tenure on the church committee, though, 
Gee retired. She explained that she “did it for a long, long time. I no 
longer do it. If somebody wants help at the church I am no longer on the 
roster.” It is a big change after some fifteen years. And as Gee recalled, 
it relieves her from the commitment that comes from a habit of helping 
others based on the fact that “every time they have a problem, a funeral 
or anything, they call me and say, ‘The people don’t have money and 
they need help.’”
Deva remembered seeing a show overseas when Gee presented 
with a team on behalf of Jamaica. He recollected how “that artwork 
there from the flower arrangement was a true art of Jamaica. You could 
feel the flowers—the whole presentation itself was just jumping out 
saying this is me, this is Jamaica …. It was wonderful.” He understood 
then what kind of dedication and love was required of Gee to perform 
with the nation’s top floral arranging team and why it meant so much 
to her to be seen as a successful artist among her peers.
Writing Rituals
Betty knew that her friend, Gee, was “not an avid reader,” but she was 
certain that the florist “has a lot of floral books that she goes through 
over and over. It is like a bible to her. She gets a lot of inspiration from 
that.” This kind of reading served Gee well over the many years that 
she was responsible for creating designs for family, friends, businesses, 
charitable organizations, and competitions that her flower club orga-
nized. Besides the formal reading in this area, Betty was sure the work 
that Gee produced was a symbol that “the inspiration comes from 
within.” The other rituals that involve literacy in the floral arrang-
ing business include billing every day. Gee insisted that “you have to 

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have good bookkeeping … that is the business.” Apart from doing the 
accounts, the floral artist has had to be creative with the messages that 
she is asked to attach to bouquets and gift baskets.
She recounted that “some people just say to put anything.” This was 
always surprising to Gee and she spelled out one of the situations that 
repeatedly presented itself. When a customer told her they were sending 
a bouquet to their spouse, Gee would remind them that “you are send-
ing it to your husband or your wife,” not just anyone. She would say 
that “especially to the men. [who would] say to write something sweet. 
But they never tell you what to put! Isn’t that amazing!” Gee then would 
proceed to “butter up this thing and write them a sweet something … so 
they won’t have a clue that it isn’t her husband saying that.” This became 
standard procedure in her business over many years.
How does Gee decide what she should write on the gift cards for 
her clients? She explained:
Well, depending if I know the person, I know what her husband might say 
to her. So, I think that mine is a close thing. She’d never know! Like sym-
pathy cards …. We have the card marked “Deepest Sympathy” but if it is a 
close friend, you want to put a … little more personal note. So you have to 
think of something to put …. I just put “Love and Prayers” and that is it …. 
If somebody has a problem and you want to cheer them up, I find that one 
works …. Maybe when you went to see the person … it’ll say, “Love, see 
you soon.”
The Creative Process
When Gee talked about the importance of this “flower hobby” in her 
life, she kept using the word “therapy” as a way to describe the health 
benefits that come with having good friends, happy relationships, and 
the fulfillment that comes with sharing a gift with others who appreciate 
it. While she admits that when she started the flower arranging journey 
she was “so green,” it is also true that she has improved over the years 
and that she still believes that she has “more to learn.” She is clear that 
“everybody you work with has some little thing that you never thought 
of doing. You learn something from that person.” The fact that every 

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person has their own personality, which is expressed in their designs, 
is important to understanding how a wise person can keep learning 
over many years. When Gee looks back at her “green years,” she says 
“Oh, my God, I didn’t do that!” She stated that she begins a design by 
planning in her head before starting to make arrangements, some of 
her visions are not practical, though. Some of her ideas just do not work 
with the theme that she wants to express, and she admitted that she 
“would be thinking, maybe for weeks, before a show” about what she 
should put in the presentation. The new designs that some of the art-
ists learn from foreign shows make it tough for the avid enthusiast to 
keep up with their creative expressions. A whole heap of new designs 
have come up during competitions and sessions where club members 
show their work to each other. Gee explained that: “Sometimes you just 
dream and get up in the morning and you say, ‘Oh, I will try so-and-so! 
Let me try this,’” and that means you have to do “several mock-ups 
before the show. You try out things and you might get another opinion 
from one of the other girls [in the flower club].” That’s how Gee found 
out ways to make things work with her designs.
What does the work of a mature artist look like? Gee stated emphat-
ically, “You look at something and … say, ‘Yes, boy that looks good!’” 
Other times “you do a piece and you don’t care for it. You know that 
there is something wrong with it, and you ask somebody” their opin-
ion. It could be that the design “needed some yellow” because it looks 
too dull. Gee has sometimes “put yellow in everything because it just 
does something to the rest of colors that you have” and that confirms 
her belief that it’s good to have a second opinion when you are work-
ing on a new arrangement.
Betty confided that she felt “G’s strong point in floral arrangement 
is center pieces for dining tables, especially for formal dining.” She con-
tinued explaining that she “wouldn’t necessarily say that because she 
has done some centerpieces for tea parties which have been frivolous, 
and gay, pretty, and light. Whereas the more formal ones, with the roses 
and so forth, have been more, what they are supposed to depict, formal 
side of love.” It was clear to Betty that “that is where she has excelled 
in her arranging.” Deva, on the other hand, could always picture the 

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arrangements that Gee created long after he had seen them for different 
reasons. In his recollection, “It was just mind-boggling to me the things 
she does …. They were just so beautiful that for me to explain to you 
what they look like, I can’t do it. But I can picture them in my mind at 
all times.” The proud adoptee mentioned that Gee would soak plants 
in colored water so that the veins absorbed the dye, and she would 
mix flowers of different colors in patterns that could promote differ-
ent moods in the audience. These outstanding features of Gee’s artistry 
have left a deep impression on him.
The Years Ahead of Gee
When Allison talked about Gee’s future she explained that “there is a 
great scope for her in the creative side.” The gardening and the creative 
art form of floral arranging would be her way of “adding interest to 
her life” and it would be a way “to keep her going.” Gee echoes the 
tone about the life-giving quality of the expression that has kept her 
“alive” for “thirty-something years.” She conceded that “it is just a part 
of my life now. Don’t think that I would like to do without it. It’s been 
wonderful!” She wants to keep doing the work even if “it is just doing 
it to give friends or for [decorating] in the house.” Although she can’t 
see how this work shows up in her life, besides being a form of ther-
apy, it seems to express her enthusiasm for living and the way in which 
her spiritual experience moves through her and those with whom she 
communicates. In essence, her messages in flowers are a running river 
that connects all those who are touched by the gifts from Gee’s garden.
Left to Gee, however, there is a dream etched out in her imagination 
that she would carry out if she had to do the whole flower arranging 
journey from the start. She shared her wishes in this statement:
If I had to do it again, [if I] was much younger, I think I would … go to shows, 
now we can’t afford it because it is expensive. You go abroad and you get a 
lot more exposure than we get here. You see the new trends every year. They 
are bringing something new in arranging. The exposure is what I would have 
liked to do. That’s not possible anymore.

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There are other things that she would put in place to make her longing 
for this floral arranging experience a totally fulfilling one. She explained 
that she would “just fix up some little corner, cozy” in her house and 
carry on her business. This is based on the fact that “sometimes for a 
week I don’t have any orders. Then you might get a few in one week. 
It goes and comes.” So the business would only take care of a limited 
number of customers. Gee also thought that she “would diversify and 
go into gift boxes. Specialize … and do strictly gift baskets, goodie bas-
kets … with fruits and juices” and wines or other treats.
What has limited her ability to carry out these business plans? She 
was clear that her concern was about the high cost of working with the 
materials that are most attractive to the consumer. Gee was sad when 
she listed the kinds of challenges that dampened her enthusiasm at this 
point of the business journey. She recounted that:
… we have to buy baskets locally made because the imported baskets are very 
expensive, except if you have an order of very expensive baskets. But [making 
up an order] can cost you some $800 up to $1000 [Jamaican dollars], in baskets 
alone. So what do you charge for that arrangement? Too much. So you have to 
buy the local ones which are a bit expensive.
Then there are the other ingredients to make up a gift basket, like “fruits 
of the day and some foreign fruits, like papaya, bananas, oranges, 
grapes, apples,” and local fruits. Gee added that “some people request 
wine in their baskets, cookies” and other specialty goods if the person 
receiving the basket is a recovering patient or a new mother. All of these 
specialty items make the cost to the customer quite exorbitant.
Then there is the continual draw of the extended “family” that Gee 
has made a solid part of her life. She always gave a hand when someone 
asked for support at the last minute, or when they needed additional 
labor to get a job completed at a lower cost. In one case, she helped out a 
family friend by using balloons “to fill the gap” where they would oth-
erwise make an arrangement at the side of the head table at a wedding 
banquet. For that event the team used red carnations in glass vases, 
recycled from a wedding that took place years before, with water that 
was colored red, the designers put “some red salt in there and filled it 

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with water until it looked like you had a red ruby,” for each of twelve 
tables.
What was the response to this design for the event? Gee smiled with 
pride when she answered the question: “Oh, it was excellent. [The lady] 
was thrilled to the marrow!! Really happy. And that made me happy.” At 
the end of the day, Gee only wants to know that “my customer is happy 
and she loved what” was created for the event. This is what would dic-
tate her choice about working with clients from day to day. Deva, who 
saw Gee grow her home business, confirmed this attitude that described 
Gee’s business philosophy. He declared that “since I’ve known her, she’s 
had this great passion for flowers. Not only does she have a great pas-
sion for flowers, but she has a great passion and love for people just as a 
rule,” and he was certain that Gee would be directed by her heart rather 
than increasing the profit margin of her business.
Whatever the challenges might be, Gee was certain that she 
would continue to do the work that her gift and passion for flowers 
demanded. Betty, her dear friend, was convinced that Gee would not 
be “going to leave Jamaica.” And this was based on the observation 
that her closest friend “loves it too much.” So that attachment to the 
country would lead to a decision to find more creative ways to deal 
with the bad economy and the limited kinds of flowers and gift items 
that would be available for customers. The fact that “Gee is Gee” and 
that she likes to get involved and be “right there with everybody and 
doing something,” according to Betty, is the overriding perspective that 
would shape the next steps in the flower artist’s journey. Deva, who has 
regarded Gee as a mother for more than forty years of his life, stated 
that “I heard a couple friends [say], they would like to see her in more 
competitions. But, the thing though, was that she was so modest.” It 
was not in Gee’s character to seek out venues where she was not able to 
do her floral arranging “for the love of it.” Deva was clear that it’s “not 
so much about winning any competition” in Gee’s orientation to her 
lifelong hobby and therapy. The long-time supporter and admirer of 
Gee’s work and character said with conviction that “everyone always, 
always gives her high praises on the work that she has done” and that 
has continued to be the most sought-after commendation for Miss Gee.

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Chapter 4
Gina’s Party of a Lifetime
It may be best to start talking about Gina’s path as a businesswoman 
by sharing a peek into her philosophy about life and doing for others 
in your community. Gina stated that she was “going after what’s my 
love. Not simply an opportunity to make money, but doing something 
that I love to do which is feeding people and seeing them happy and 
seeing them in a fellowship environment.” Her son, Andy, who once 
worked alongside Gina in the catering and event planning business, 
explained that he and his sister, Aida, “were taught from very young 
to see greater than the ends of our noses,” and that “the small sacrifices 
of today pay off greater in the long term.” This is an approach to life 
that Andy has passed on to his children and uses as a guiding light in 
his personal and business relationships. But this perspective on Gina’s 
attitude to her friends and family is not simply the reflection of a child 
that she has raised. The echo of the caring leader and her commitment 
to positive family values is also present in Daniel’s, her ex-spouse’s, 
remark that Gina brings her “own experiences into dealing with people 
… to deal with people at their level and not at the level, [of saying] I am 

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your boss and you are the employee so you have to suck up to me. But 
rather, we can do this together.”
It is important to go back to the beginning of Gina’s story of 
becoming the president of Island Catering in order to appreciate how 
far she has come from the days when she just arrived in the USA 
with her two children, ages five and nine years, and the product of a 
secondary level education. Her son recounted that Gina took several 
jobs in order to pay her bills and take care of her children at the level 
that she wanted them to experience life. Her son, Andy, completed 
high school and three years of college in Maryland and had owned 
six businesses by the time that he married and had his first child. He 
remembered that he “did a lot of community service and activism 
work with the youth and had a lot of programs … dealing with race 
relations” and other community issues. This young man, considered 
one of the closest people to Gina on her business journey, remem-
bered that “we had … a lot of mess ups, a lot of mistakes, but with 
every one we learned from the mistake, and it never happened again 
…. But we learned from everything.”
Aida, Gina’s daughter, recollected that her mother “came to the 
country and took a class at the community college in our area, proba-
bly something in computers. And she started working for some other 
company, and changed a few companies,” until she took a job as “an 
efficiency manager at King” at a high salary. Since Aida believes that 
her mother “is very efficient and knows how to manage something” 
it seemed a natural transition from the job at King to Island Caterers. 
Because this change took place during the same year that Aida was 
planning to start college in New York city, without a scholarship, she 
remembered thinking to herself that “my mother supported my choice 
to go to NYC University rather than American where I had a full schol-
arship, simply because that was where I wanted to go and that’s where 
I knew I would be happy” so she wished her good luck. Because, as 
Gina had taught her children, “it should never be about the money, it 
should always be about your happiness. Because at the end of the day, 
at the end of your lifetime, that money is going to mean very little if 
you don’t feel as though your spirit has been fed.”

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