A resident of the Palms, a geriatric home in Georgetown, recently turned 107 and is now four years short of Guyana’s longevity record set here by Sonny Hendricks.

Mortimer Lamazon was born on July 22, 1906 in Queenstown, Essequibo. He grew up among five sisters and five brothers and subsequently spent most of his years working as a carpenter around Georgetown.
“He was a friendly and jovial person…and he was a hard worker, he always wanted to do things on his own,” recalled Mortimer’s sister-in law, Eva Lamazon.
But tragedy struck in his life after he visited his sisters in the US as he became psychiatrically afflicted. “He came back sick and they send him to the Berbice madhouse,” Eva told Guyana Chronicle.
She said that he was released a few years later and went to live with his mother and another sister in Essequibo.
“Then when his mother died and my husband got sick he moved with me and I took care of him,” she said, recalling that one morning she left him alone and a lamp fell on him and burnt his leg and feet.
Eva said at that time she was diagnosed with arthritis in both her legs. “I am lame in both foot so I couldn’t take care of him no more,” she lamented, adding that she became worried for him because of his illness. She said that she had no other choice than to take him to the Palms.
When this newspaper asked if she would visit Lamazon she said she couldn’t. “I can’t visit him. I bin at the Palms to take therapy for my foot but I couldn’t go up the steps to see him because I lame so I asked the nurse to tell him that I come and I asked her how he was…and he told the nurse that he want to see mother…he calls me his mother.”
Sonny Hendricks, the oldest known man in Guyana died peacefully in bed at his residence  in the Moco-Moco community in 2011. He was 111-years-old. According to reports from the Rupununi, Hendricks, popularly known as ‘Uncle Sonny’ succumbed to influenza.