John’s Anglican Church, in, as Miss Mellie describes, “a big church wedding.” Mellie then moved to the South District, having spent her entire life “North.”Īs they raised their growing family, Will labored by day in the salt pans, then worked into the evenings as sexton at St. What started as a one bedroom has grown, in salt-raker fashion, to three. During their engagement, with the help of his future father-in-law, Will built the home they share today. When they became engaged, Will worked in the salt industry and was learning the trade of a mason. Mellie and Will raised seven children in 56 years of marriage. She lived with her husband William Stanley Simmons in their South District home until his death on July 31, 2007. Melvina “Mellie” Estelle Robinson Simmons is 82 years old.
The remainder of the surviving brothers and sisters can be found on Salt Cay. Today, Leonie Been, the eldest of the Robinson children at 93, lives in Grand Turk. Ten children in all, the Robinsons bore eight girls and two boys. On Salt Cay, there are several families of brothers and sisters still residing there after many years, with the largest among them the children of Roderick Robinson and Eliza Kennedy Robinson.
They easily spanned 7 to 12 children, all born in the small homes in which they would grow up, and perhaps still live. Like most Turks Islands families, those on Salt Cay were big. Others have left only to come back to live out their days. Some of the young undertook professions only found in cities, not tiny islands. With the passing of time, many members of these families have left Salt Cay to make a living. There aren’t many different surnames: Simmons, Smith, Simons, Talbot, Robinson, Dickenson, Been, Wilson, Kennedy, Lightbourne, Selver, Landy, Hamilton, Glinton and Garland cover most everyone born and raised here. Most residents of Salt Cay tend to be somehow related through several hundred years of marriages and births. Story & Photos By Michele Belanger-McNair To these siblings, home is nowhere but Salt Cay.
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