My beloved cousin, Francine A. Penn-Scipio, has fallen asleep in death. The good Book of Ecclesiastes says that for humans, animals, and other living organisms on earth, death is certain, our physical bodies die and return to dust. In other words, the dust returns to the ground where it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
Francine came from Upstreet, a very rich cultural center of Virgin Islands history. Historically, it was a close community with an entrepreneurial spirit of businesses, trades, joy, laugher, loving, kindness, etc.
Upstreet also is linked to the development of Charlotte Amalie town, which made the harbor a major commercial center for the Danish Crown. With the growing numbers of emigrant entrepreneurs migrating to St. Thomas during its “Golden Era,” Upstreet played a central role in turning St. Thomas into one of the most successful ports in the entire Caribbean region. In 1765, the harbor of St. Thomas became a freeport.
Francine’s grandfather John C. Davis Sr. (Davies) was a native of Tortola, born June 29, 1869, who migrated to St. Thomas with his father at an early age. His father was a former slave owner and was baptized in the Dutch Reformed Church. Later, he joined All Saints Episcopal Church. Davis was a joiner and painter. His entrepreneurial spirit led him to establish the first successful grocery business in the Upstreet area, a shop that served the close-knit Upstreet community, known as “Round the Field,” “Round the Coast,” and the Bayside people from the 1890s to the Great Depression in the 1930s.
The Davies in East End Tortola are one and the same people of Francine’s grandfather, John Davis Sr. It is a kallaloo in our family history of the descended. Her grandfather’s mother was a Pickering, which is our great-grandmother. Pickering was once a prominent figure and served as governor of Tortola during the 18th century. Nonetheless, our grandfather’s shop was original, located on Bjerge Gade, across from Pete’s gas station and adjacent to the J. Antonio Jarvis Annex back in the day.
Davis grocery store was so well known in the vicinity that Marcus Garvey Black steamship line purchased groceries when visiting the St. Thomas port. His shop was where you could get your two-cents butter, a half-pound of sugar, three-cents lard, or box cheeses. Grandfather was an entrepreneur in so many other businesses, such as a master chicken and horse breeder, and very innovative by horse and cart combination to deliver terms at people homes. Culturally speaking, he was a master Quelbe dancer. Francine’s grandmother was Catherine Smalls, born April 9, 1888, on the island of St. John. She was the youngest of our great-grandparents, Richard and Susannah Smalls, residents of St. John.
In fact, Estate Susannaberg on St. John was named after our great-grandmother, a white woman from England. She taught school in the Emmaus Moravian Church in St. John. Estate Susannaberg also played a major role in the slaves’ (Maroons) revolt in 1733 when the island was in the hands of freedom fighters for about six months. Francine’s cultural history is deep in the British and U.S. Virgin Islands. She came from a family of entrepreneurs going back to the mid-1800s to the 21st century.
Her mother, Esterline Davis Penn Parrilla, was born on Oct. 14, 1914, on Prindsens Gade #8B in the Upstreet area of St. Thomas during the Danish rule of these islands. She was the third of 11 children of our grandparents. Francine’s father was James Walter Penn, a native of Tortola, British Virgin Islands. She was 8 months old, the youngest of six girls, when her father passed. Believe me, it was tough for my aunt to raise six girls. They are Pastor Edith Maria Penn Leerdam, Dr. Eleanor R. Penn Blyden, Eleanora L. Penn, Doris A. Penn, and Rita Penn Harris.
In 1936, Francine’s parents operated one of the most popular restaurants in the Upstreet area, on Bjerge Gade, between “Seventh-Day Adventist Street” and “Goat Street.” After Francine’s father passed, her mother Esterline continued the business under the name of Aluminum Bar and Restaurant. As we would say locally, culinary (cooking) was in Francine’s mother’s DNA. Her mother often hosted community activities, which included the accommodation of groups that traveled to St. Croix for inter-island athletic activities and from Puerto Rico. In 1957, my aunt remarried to Joaquin Acosta Parrilla of Vieques (Carb Island). Her restaurant had a new name: Parrilla’s Bar and Restaurant.
Francine’s mother was the first person from Upstreet to serve lechon, a favorite Spanish dish. When her mother moved to Hospital Ground #207, she continued her business under the name of The Hillside Inn. For over 60 years, her mother was an entrepreneurial cook, baker, and exceptional seamstress and tailor, sewing anything from men’s suits to wedding gowns. Therefore, it was only natural for Francine to take up the art as a cook, baker, etc. Like her mother, Francine loved people, especially feeding the homeless and mentally ill in our community.
Francine was a God-fearing person. She believed in serving the needy, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and welcoming strangers and visiting the sick. This act of mercy to her fellow humans demonstrated love for God, she believed. She was best known, however, for the public Thanksgiving Luncheon at the Emancipation Garden for about 27 years.
One of the many things I love about my cousin Francine, she made the Emancipation Garden a place of followship by serving people with food and the support of families, friends, and civic organizations, making a difference in our community by feeding the less fortunate among us or anyone that needed a plate of food. In our history, Emancipation Garden was once a hub in the 18th century for the Danish West India Company to serve as a central marketplace for the slave trade in the Caribbean region as well as the United States.
What more Black History we can get than in celebrating Black History Month by following in Francine’s footsteps by caring for our community? Her legacy will live on in the thousands and tens of thousands of people she touched over the years. It is with this faith of serving our community that the Francine Penn-Scipio Thanksgiving Luncheon should continue in her name as a Virgin Islands cultural tradition with food and fellowship, especially for the homeless, mentally ill, and others in our community.
May she rest in peace in the hearts of the Virgin Islands people.
— Olasee Davis is a bush professor who lectures and writes about the culture, history, ecology and environment of the Virgin Islands when he is not leading hiking tours of the wild places and spaces of St. Croix and beyond.
Editor’s Note: Opinion articles do not represent the views of the Virgin Islands Source newsroom and are the sole expressed opinion of the writer. Submissions can be made to visource@gmail.com.
