Iola Busby has been remembered as a loving and easy-going matriarch of Sandys.

Cecilla Bean yesterday paid tribute to her mother, who died this week at the grand old age of 102.

Ms Bean said of her mother: “She loved cooking and gardening and loved to be around people.

“She was a very quiet person. She didn’t work, she had enough work to do at home.

“Everybody looked up to her because they knew who she was. She baked every bit of cake she could for the weddings in Sandys parish.

“She was also an avid cricket player — she used to play for the Rose Buds [female Bermuda cricket team] years ago. She was a bowler and she was excellent at it.”

As her only daughter, Ms Bean said the two of them were inseparable.

“I was very close to my mother — wherever you saw one, you saw the next one,” she said. “I was always with her as I was the only daughter.

“She had three boys — Alfred, who they called Joe Manuel; Victor, they called him Vic Drop; and Gary, who they called Guy.

“Don’t ask me where the names came from — the boys, they always had nicknames. Alfred was in the BIU.”

Asked whether her mother ever told her the secret to a long life, Ms Bean joked: “No, and I don’t want to live it. I want mine to be short — I’m 75 now and I don’t want to go too much further.

“She was very easy-going. Her favourite person was her caretaker, Carol Burgess. She loved this girl to death, she really looked after her.”

The Progressive Labour Party has joined with the Sandys community, family and friends in mourning the passing of Iola Busby.

“As many Bermudians may know, Mrs Busby last August celebrated her 102nd birthday, but her life was far more than her longevity,” Jamahl Simmons, the Sandys South MP, said. “It was the joy and wisdom she brought to all who knew her. Our prayers got out to her family.”

As well as her children, Ms Busby leaves behind her aunt, Angelina Bean, six grandchildren, seven great-grand- grands, daughters-in-law Jeanette and Velma Bean, numerous nieces and nephews, and other relatives and friends.

A service will be held at St James Church on Monday at 2pm.