City Hall was filled to capacity yesterday for an awards ceremony to honour the Island's senior citizens.

June has been designated 'Senior's Month' and yesterday's ceremony was one of many events planned.

Premier Jennifer Smith was on hand and presented centenary awards to four women; Alice Almira Dean, Florence Elizabeth Kemp Lumsden, Gertrude Geraldine Johnson and Ruth Esther Wainwright. The Premier also hosted her annual senior's tea party on Sunday afternoon at the Botanical Gardens.

A 'senior citizens' biographies' also provided a narrative into the lives of the four, who have seen the world change dramatically over the past 100 years.

Mrs. Dean spent most of her life on Dudley Hill in Paget, sharing a home built by her father. Mrs. Dean and her family left the Island when she was a teenager. She did not return until the mid-1930s.

In 1938, she married Douglas Dean and although they did not have children of their own, they where fortunate to have numerous nieces and nephews.

Mrs. Dean and her husband were married 49 years and after his death she returned to the house that her father built. She lived there until she was 91-years-old

Friends and family called have called her a kind, quiet, private person whose life centred around church and family.

Mrs. Lumsden grew up in the English town of Sydenham. In 1937, her husband was posted to Bermuda. She later followed him to the Island.

After retiring from the army, Mrs. Lumsden and her husband returned to England but soon found that they missed the subtropical climate of Bermuda and moved to Spanish Point, where they had a son.

She took on jobs as secretary at an architectural firm and then later at the Bank of Bermuda, where she worked as a personal secretary to a senior trust officer for more than 15 years.

She retired from the bank in 1966.

In 1988, her husband passed away, but she continued to live in their Spanish Point home until her 97th year.

Mrs. Johnson was born in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica. She grew up on a farm with her two sisters and four brothers. In her 20s, she took a vacation to the Island and stayed on to work as a housekeeper for a local family.

In 1930, she married Rundel Johnson and they moved to a farm in Devonshire, but tragedy struck when her husband unexpectedly died. Family members from Jamaica moved to the Island and helped her care for the farm.

At the tender age of 88, she travelled to New Zealand where she met with other relatives. She has a son, two grandchildren, three great grandchildren and numerous nieces and nephews.

Mrs. Wainwright grew up in Camp Hill, Warwick in the days when it was rural countryside.

When she was 20 years old, she found employment at Robert's Tailor shop on Washington Street.

Mrs. Wainwright was an avid tennis played who loved the game so much that she played until she was 65.

In 1932, she married Thompson Wainwright, a marriage that lasted 23 years and produced one son. While raising her son she became a working mother, running her own dress making, tailoring and upholstery business at home.

When her son was grown she returned to the workforce as a tailor for Gibbons Company.

Throughout the years she spent her time volunteering at the government clinic at the bottom of Khyber Pass in Warwick. She also assisted with the Sunshine league.