My Dear Friends and Supporters,
I hope life continues to be well for you and yours!

February 2025… 

“The best way to get through life is to be the person you were meant to be, with courage and integrity. ” – Bernard Shaw 

We lost our angel, the most beautiful lady we ever met—her charm, wit, and beauty. At her age, 104 years, dear Mrs. Eleanor Ramsay was and remains full of life, with a sense of humor… Her wisdom, elegance, and candor have no parallels.

Our condolences to her beloved son Jonathan, who remained by her bedside until the very end and to whom her last words in this world were addressed: “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,” repeated five times. To her friend Niki, her grandchildren, and all who held Mrs. Eleanor Ramsay dear, we extend our deepest sympathies.

On 7 March 2025 , the editor’s tribute was paid tn the Tribune, to the unseen Love of Eleonor and her beloved husband Michael.

In the faraway 2016, Hurricane Matthew hit the Bahamas. We were evacuated to a shelter nearby, the hospital that kindly hosted a sort of Ark—our group of people from all parts of the world, sharing meals, rooms, worries, and prayers. It was in that place that I saw a very elegant lady, standing in her own room, coming out to gazing intently out the window—she was worrying about her baby. And when she told me that her “baby” was seventy years old, I could hardly believe it, since she herself looked no older than eighty.

I had lost my mother less than a year before, she had lost her years before. We were both Scorpios, and so began the marvelous friendship, the love… Her manners and speech were rooted in her British Empire and American aristocratic diplomatic background. She was a heroine, full of wisdom and charm, like the most sophisticated, intelligent women from Somerset Maugham and Bernard Shaw novels.

We had the honor of being hosted by her for five o’clock teas, and it was hard to convince her that we would help clean up afterward. We also had the honor of hosting her a couple of times for dinner at our home, and it was amazing how she always found little things to compliment.

We used to go foodstore shopping, and the beautiful drive along the ocean was filled with her sharp-witted comments, pointing out the flaws of the modern world and the way everything was kept. One of her favorites was on modern women: “In my time, all you had to do was marry the right man. Then, those women wanted to work, be independent, and now they complain. Enjoy your freedom!” Our two youngest boys were her helpers, running in a competition to see who would be the first to find her favorite crackers, jam, and mango chutney—all rigorously from the UK.

Of course, she was a living museum of the history of Nassau and the Bahamas, being among the first relocants after WWII, when her husband had fought and been wounded. She told us many stories about how it all was, including the founding of the Lyford Cay Community and Club.

On another occasion, she told us about a Jewish doctor, the founder of the local Doctors Hospital, his wife, a nurse, their endless kindness and professionalism, and his tragic death at the hands of a drug addict.

And many other stories, including her childhood in the Canary Islands, encounters with notable figures, and her husband’s lineage—one of the oldest and most distinguished in British nobility, tracing back to 1122. And the deep roots of her father and mother, which gave her an American imprint. And most of all, how she loved and missed them all—something we shared too. I miss my mother and father.

We used to speak every day after my trading practice on a simulator account—often until she would head off to prepare her dinner, always tasty, always made by herself. She was fascinated by this new mastery of self-directed trading, and we even talked about her learning it one day. Those priceless daily conversations were abruptly cut short by our awful, illegal eviction.

And on that day, February 27, 2018, Mrs. Ramsey—then the 98-year-old widow of the consul to France and Belgium—picked up the phone and called the Commissioner of Police and the Cabinet of the Prime Minister, trying to stop that ordeal… but there was no response

When we bought our house in the Lyford Cay gated community, it was exactly our hope to meet a remarkable person like Mrs. Ramsey—a symbol of elegance, beauty, wit, integrity, honor, honesty, and fearlessness.

She was my best friend, and so she will always be. I was reluctant to call her often after the eviction because our life had become a day-to-day fight for survival, and I feared it would disturb her… I always hoped to have good news tomorrow, 24 February 2025, and when our trial date was finally settled, I planned to call her afterward… Instead, I will go to her grave.  

She is now in peace with her beloved mother and father, the love of her life, her husband, and her oldest son.

As Somerset Maugham once said, “The crown of life is neither happiness nor success but memory and love.”

And Mrs. Eleanor Ramsey left us with both — precious memories and the love she so generously shared. She will always be in our hearts, shining like the precious gem we had the honor to meet, We admired her, and she called me a friend.

With blessings and tears,

Irina and family