Do you know any Crooks?
I hoped to find leads to the Crooks history in town. The Falmouth Renewal Offices seemed like a good place to start. But it was dark inside and stripped to the studs. The contract supervisor, covered in a fine layer of dust, eventually joined Troy and I out on the street. “I’m sorry to interrupt your work,” I said, and explained what we were after. “Crooks?” he said. “Don’t they own a nightclub in Montego Bay?” “Oh. Well, could be,” I said, thinking that would be an entirely predictable vocation for my kin. “Which club is it?” Share...
Read MoreSearching the Jewish Cemetery
In Falmouth, driving up Duke Street one afternoon, we found ourselves at the old stone wall of the Jewish Cemetery. A small wooden door served as the entrance, like a portal to a secret garden. We all got out to take a look, trampling overgrown vines between knee-high tombs, many of them cracked or too weathered to read. Jade hunted for unusual insects, the rest of us, for Crookses. But most of the names we could make out were Spanish — Carvalho, De Casseres, Morales, Delgado, DeSouza. Most of them the family names of those driven to Jamaica after the Spanish inquisition left them...
Read MoreThe Goats
They stood like sentinels on top of the graves, staring at us. “Eerie,” Stephen said. And they were. In island folklore a goat might well be a duppy, the patois term for a restless spirit or ghost, and usually a nasty one. Jamaica loves its ghost stories: tales of departed souls tormenting the living, haunting mansions, taking animal forms, terrorizing people at night. Most of the island’s superstitions stem from a long history of African folk magic that once made white captors fearful of the sorcery slaves might wield against them. Share...
Read MoreFalmouth’s old church
St. Peter’s Anglican Church had weathered its share of storms. It was the oldest public building in Falmouth, a single storey of brick and stone constructed on Barrett lands in 1795. We took it in while waiting for the rain to stop. Share...
Read MoreFinding our first Crooks
My mother was suddenly beside me, nudging in front of me, my father too. We were all of us sandwiched between the idling bus and the gate’s metal bars, captivated by the familiarity in a stranger’s face. Share...
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