100-y-o still farms, sells produce at Highgate market

HIGHGATE, St Mary – She now uses a walking stick to get there, but as long as it’s a sunny day, 100-year-old Evadnie McBean makes her way to her backyard garden to tend her tomatoes, beans, pok choi, cho cho, and rosemary. Then every Saturday the still-bubbly, sharp, and full-of-life Highgate resident takes her produce to market.

“At my age I continue to do both, unassisted,” McBean said proudly.

Born on June 22, 1925, in Burton district, St Catherine, McBean, affectionately called Vadnie, grew up farming with her parents. That early love for the land never left her.

Seeking better opportunities as a young woman, she migrated to Highgate, St Mary, where she met David Moore Stewart, popularly known as Mr Lazzy. Their union produced two children, both of whom have since passed away.

Now known across the community as Miss Highgate, McBean has spent decades hawking her produce wherever she can find customers.

“I did this and sold in the markets from Old Harbour, Spanish Town, Coronation, and then Highgate,” she said.

Now that she is older, her niece Gloria — one of her late sister’s sons and daughters whom she raised — is her caregiver. But the centenarian still monitors her own diet as she believes her strength comes from eating wholesome, unprocessed food grown with her own hands. McBean said it helps that in her younger days she ensured that she treated her body well by eating good food, working hard, and resting.

“The food now have too much of nothing in them, and they are tasteless,” she said. “I drink only natural juice: Blend my June plum, star fruit, and cherries. That is juice! I always have a bottle wherever I am going out as it’s just sugar and water with little colour that they sell for juice,” she said.

In addition to eating well, McBean believes it is also important to have the right attitude to life.

“Through my life I give from the heart and stay positive, not carrying any negativity with me towards others,” she told the Observer.

“I love people, and I don’t wish bad on anyone, and I am always giving [and] not looking for anything in return,” she explained.

On Sundays, after a week of farming and selling, she walks the few meters from her home to church.

“I am old, but mi don’t have any sickness, little pain in the joints but that goes with age,” McBean chuckled.

Centenarian Evadnie McBean sharing details of her life.Ingrid Henry

One hundred-year-old Evadnie McBean (right) and her friend Nelly Brown can be regularly found selling their produce at Highgate Market on Saturdays.