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Dame Nita Barrow: An authentic heroine in Caribbean womanhood.
Barbados once touted a slogan: "21 miles long and a smile wide." That characteristic smile could have been borrowed from the perpetual countenance of Ruth Nita Barrow, Dame of Saint Andrew, Grand Commander of Saint Michael and Saint George.
When a massive stroke claimed the life of Dame Nita Barrow last December 19, exactly five years after she took the oath of office as Governor General of Barbados, the nation had suddenly lost a champion; the Caribbean, one of its best denizens and the world, a most notable woman.
No head of state in Barbados enthralled all of Barbados as did Dame Nita, the registered nurse who became her country's favored matriarch and the first woman to hold the highest office in the nation.
Born November 15, 1916 to a highly respected Anglican priest, the Reverend Reginald Grant Barrow and Mrs. Ruth Alberta Barrow, she was educated at Columbia University,...