Her granddaughter, Beatrice Richardson,
a nurse for the Rhode Island Department of
Health, and her daughter, Lydia, sit nearby.
They take care of Matilda, along with other
family members who switch off duties. “She
wears belts with everything whether it
matches or not,” says Beatrice. “She loves
jewelry, red lipstick and red nail polish is
her thing.”
“When I came here from Liberia, I was in
my mid-seventies. I have been here twenty
years. I have eleven children, and they are
all still alive. I have thirty grandchildren
and I don’t know how many great-grandchildren,”
says Matilda. “I only have one
child in Liberia, the youngest, and the rest
of my children are in the United States.”
Her children came here for college at
Johnson and Wales University, Indiana State
University and University of Rhode Island,
among others, Beatrice explains, but the
youngest child stayed behind to take care of
Matilda’s husband, who was ill.
“Before moving here, I used to come and
visit. I was a schoolteacher in Liberia. I used
to come on my vacations and go back. But
then the war started and I realized I can’t
go back. I am trying to get my daughter in
Liberia to come, so I can see her before I’m
gone,” Matilda says.
“In Liberia, I taught fifth grade and different
subjects, including science. I taught
until right before the war, so 1990, then I
retired. The children didn’t want me to leave
them,” she says.
Beatrice describes life in Liberia with her
grandparents until she came here in 2001.
“We lived in Virginia, a suburb in Liberia
where my grandmother opened a little feeding
center for people. The United Nations would provide food and
Matilda Richardson,
feed orphans and people who didn’t have anything. She also
took care of foster kids in Liberia. They adopted kids from the
ninety-five,
neighborhood. If someone had a child that they couldn’t take
care of, she would just take them over.”
South Providence
Her current church, through the ministry Isaiah 58, helps
BY JAMIE COELHO
the less fortunate by preparing meals. “My grandmom, even
at this age, would sit there and register everybody that came
M
atilda Richardson sits at the dining room in. It was her role,” says Beatrice. “Nobody could take that job
table of her home in South Providence. She’s from her; she took it very seriously.”
wearing a black straw hat that she normally Matilda only stopped going to the senior center last summer.
wears to church, a red sweater, an intricate “It’s harder to get around, but I used to go every day. At the end
necklace and red nail polish she applied herself that day, but of last year, I started with arthritis,” Matilda says. Her granddaughter
says she doesn’t take any medication; just Tylenol for
she’s upset she can’t find her long dangling earrings.
“I am ninety-five now, soon to be 100 years,” she says with pain. “We grew up eating all naturally grown food,” Beatrice
a grin. says. “We had farms and gardens, and | | CONTINUED ON PAGE 131
RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l MAY/JUNE 2020 73