The Orchid Charity Club celebrated its 66th anniversary at the morning service at Evening Light Tabernacle on Parsons Road, Pembroke. A luncheon followed at the Grotto Bay Beach Resort in Hamilton Parish.

The club was founded on October 5, 1949, by the late Ivy Ming Swan, a chambermaid at the black-owned and operated Imperial Hotel in Hamilton.

Since then, a whole generation or two of Bermudians have grown up, not knowing, remembering or caring about the sociological climate that gave birth to the Orchids.

The second half of the 20th century, when the Orchids were taking root, was turbulent.

The Theatre Boycott, which led to the end of government-sanctioned racial discrimination in public places, happened during that time, as did the longshoremen’s strike led by Joe Mills.

The Orchids came into being nine months after the Leopards Club similarly blazed a trail. The two clubs have worked in tandem since, with the Leopards headquarters serving as home of the Orchids.

The Orchid Charity Club has donated tens of thousands of dollars to charitable causes in the country over the past half-century.

Much of the money has been raised through the club’s annual Island-wide tag days, through the efforts of volunteers who have joined members at strategic locations collecting cash from donors and pinning tags.

After 66 years, many members are soldiering on doing good work, raising funds for charity and giving tangible assistance to needy families, the sick and disabled.

The Iconic Packwood

The Packwood Home had a tag day last weekend.

My donation, and the subsequent tag on my lapel, made me start wondering how many people actually knew who Arnold Packwood was. And, if they knew about his achievements, how that might have impacted their donation.

My thoughts immediately went to the book I wrote, ‘Heroines in the Medical Field of Bermuda’, published years ago by Dale Butler’s Writers’ Machine.

Dr Packwood was one of the first black Bermudians, after the 1834 abolition of slavery, who qualified in medicine in North America.

Long before the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital came into existence in about 1912, Dr Packwood, with nurse Cordelia Fubler at his side, operated on patients in their homes or at his Ely’s Harbour surgery/residence, removing limbs, tonsils and tumours.

Ms Fubler talked about an old-time operation in which a man’s leg was amputated in his home. Two doctors performed the operation while she held the leg. Can you imagine how it was back in the day?

Dr Packwood was iconic and equally so was nurse Fubler. He bequeathed his residence, Andover Arbour, to the community. Significantly, it was upon his death in 1925 that Trinidadian-born EF Gordon, later famed as Mazumbo, was recruited to fill the void.

Since the 1930s, Dr Packwood’s residence has operated as the Packwood Home. Many of us pass it umpteen times a week going in and out of Somerset, probably without giving a second thought about its historical significance.

We mentioned above how iconic both Dr Packwood and Ms Fubler were. Her speciality was midwifery. She was one of the few midwives in the whole of the country before the turn of the century.

True to her noble calling, she went where and when called. She nursed from Somerset to Hamilton, which was the limit in those days because of transportation and other difficulties. Often she travelled by foot. Thunder and lightning meant nothing to Ms Fubler. She went unhesitatingly, despite the fact she had her own family of six to look after.

Ms Fubler was one of a small group who worked tirelessly during the flu epidemic that swept Bermuda after the First World War ended in 1918.

So devastating was the flu that the authorities banned tolling of church bells for the burial of the number of people who died daily; tolling was having a bad psychological effect on the hundreds who were stricken.

I have often declared how overwhelming it is getting into my archives. Sometimes I do not know where to stop digging; and that is coupled with my belief that the new generations may want to know their history. This feature was precipitated by the charming lady who stuck on my lapel. At this point I must call this the end of part one on both Dr Packwood and Ms Fubler.