The Kwanzaa Train was rolling in Bermuda this year for the 19th Christmas season since it was first introduced in the island. Kwanzaa means first fruits. It is an African-American and Pan-African holiday celebrated by millions throughout the world's African community.

Its aim is to bring a cultural message that speaks to the best of what it is to be African and human in the fullest sense.

One of the Seven Principles enunciated by the founder of Kwanzaa is highlighted particularly on one of the seven days set aside for the celebration. The Principles involve feasting, fasting, paying tribute to ancestors and focusing on economic and cultural matters.

The honour of hosting the Fifth Principle fell to Afro-centric Patrice Smith. She chose to honour two outstanding ancestors who had inspired her, and who passed away during 2007. They were Dame Lois Browne Evans and Dr. Asa Grant Hilliard, III, Patrice's mentor in Pan Africanism.

Patrice is an expert photographer, whose regular job is that of corporate administrator in a Hamilton legal firm.

Her tribute to Dame Lois took the form of scenes and candid shots of grief-stricken persons from all walks of life taking up positions from very early in the morning on the day of her funeral, waiting at the doors at Hamilton City Hall before they opened for the lying-in-state there, and later at Alaska Hall, the PLP's headquarters, and in and around the Cathedral, as well as the procession along the route from there to the grave at St. John's Churchyard.

Her commentaries on the scenes proved to be most absorbing.

To complement her tribute to Dame Lois, Patrice, along with Jo-Ann James Rego ,made a point of covering each of the 36 polling stations on Election Day and again that night at the celebration in and outside Alaska Hall.

Patrice affirms that her passion in life is to visit all of the 53 nations that make up Africa and to mend broken bridges wherever she can. So far she has travelled to 11 nations, each time taking tours from Bermuda, the largest being 25 people who went to Kenya and Ethiopia.

She knew her grandfather, Antoine Patro Fortes, was born in Cape Verde Islands, a Portuguese settlement off the coast of Senegal. He settled in Bermuda, producing a son, Petro Vormit George Ford (nee Fortes), who was Patrice's father. He, along with his wife, Kathleen Williams Ford, owned and operated for nearly 20 years Ford's New World Bakery on Glebe Road in Pembroke. Petro also named his youngest son after himself, Petro (Tony) Ford.

However, it was a tragedy that triggered Patrice's interest in seeing her motherland Africa. It was when her brother, the baker's son at age 35, was tragically killed in a hit-and-run motor accident on Shelly Bay Flat on May 23, 1996.

Tony was a colourful personality. He was dubbed The Black Bermudian Indian chief and became a legend through his participation in the Heritage Day parades, wearing his authentic Indian feathers atop his thoroughbred Tennessee Walker horse.

Patrice said there had always been something out of the ordinary associated with the three Patros. The baker's father, Antoine Patro Fortes, arrived in Bermuda aboard a whale schooner sailing from his homeland in the Cape Verde Islands in 1903, when Antoine was 17 years old. He was a deckhand aboard the whaler when it put into the harbour off Tucker's Town for repairs.

Petro 1st instantly fell in love with Bermuda and, along with five other crew, jumped ship and became settlers. Antoine fathered eight children, the baker being the seventh. Now that the three male Patros have passed on, their title with a gender change has been passed on to daughter, Patrice Fortes-Smith.

Seemingly, she has inherited some of her grandfather's adventurous instincts. She is the wife of Bob Smith, and the heritage-conscious mother of a 16-year-old daughter. Her training as a legal secretary enabled her to make some interesting discoveries about her roots.

Embarking on a trip to Cape Verde, Patrice explained, she went to a small island with a translated name of Our Lady of the Rock, "where my grandfather was born".

She found his birth records, and discovered the fact that when his mother died on May 22, 1910, she left two sons; one of whom was Patro who had settled in Bermuda, and another then aged 14.

Patrice tracked down the latter's family. She intercepted a 27-year-old cousin by the name of John Fortes (the original Portuguese spelling of the surname, which Petro had Bermudianised by deed poll in 1989 to mean Ford). The cousin shares the name of one of her two brothers, John (Buddy) Ford. The cousin's father, aged 76, was known as Petro Anthony.

Patrice also discovered some tragic coincidences. One, that her father's mother had died on May 22, 1910; that her grandfather, Petro 1st, died on May 23, 1949; and Petro 'Tony' was killed on May 23, 1996.

Pedro the baker worked for many years alongside his Portuguese-speaking immigrant father. He attended Heron Bay School, and married Kathleen Esther Williams, formerly of Sinky Bay, who survives him.

Our photos show Patrice Smith (above right) with friend Grace Williams in a Kwanzaa setting at her home on Lightbourne Lane, Smith's, on Sunday, as well as some of the 50-odd guests (centre top) attending the celebration. Inset, Patrice is pictured in Ghana with her mentor, the late Dr.Asa Hilliard. He was born in Texas on August 22, 1933. He was a world renowned Pan-Africanist educator, historian, and psychologist, whose untimely death occurred on August 13, 2007 while visiting Cairo, Egypt on a lecture tour. He was married for nearly 50 years to Patsy Jo Hilliard, a former mayor of East Point, Georgia. He had visited Bermuda on occasion, cultivating interest among many Bermudians who travelled with him on one or another of his 30-odd tours to Ghana.