How Suzanne Plummer managed it all

By Akola Thompson

From a young age, now 53-year-old Suzanne Plummer moved from home to home before finally settling in Albertown, Georgetown with her adopted family.Before being adopted, Suzanne explained, she had been a “painfully shy child” with low self-esteem but her growing interest in reading and competitive sports coupled with the abundance of love from her adopted parents, saw her becoming a more self-assured young woman.

Following closely in her adopted parents’ steps with regard to social works, Suzanne became very active and was constantly picked to represent Guyana at many events overseas such as the Canada World Youth and World Assembly of Youth. At 17, she even did a six-month youth exchange program in Canada before finally securing her first job at the Ministry of Health.

Seeking to empower herself and gain a solid education, Suzanne enrolled in Chritchlow Labor College where she succeeded in all areas, except Mathematics and as such, did not get to graduate.

At the time she had begun selling Insurance and while she went back to Chritchlow in order to rewrite Mathematics, after two months, she became disheartened and dropped out.

“The timings clashed with some of my Insurance activities and I was making good commission at the time, so I consoled myself, stupidly, that I was making money and the Diploma didn’t matter. I wish I had paid more attention,” she said.

After selling insurance for 10 years, Suzanne began working at Hotel Tower as a Restaurant Manager, and thus began a 25 year old career in the field.

Currently, she is employed at Bob Evans Farm Inc. as Manager in Training.

“I enjoy working here,” she said, “I like the customer service aspect most about my job. I have a good relationship with guests and staff.”

Work life aside, Suzanne explained how at the age of 24, she and her husband Derek Plummer got married and are now in their 30th year of marriage.

With her husband being of East Indian descent and her, African, Suzanne said that when they first got together, everyone would stare at them. “I guess they weren’t accustomed to the tall Coolie boy and the short Black girl,” she said.

While many whispered behind their backs, she said, she quickly formed a close relationship with her in-laws, a relationship which still remains strong to this day.

However, being accepted into the family did not stop outside forces from targeting them, she said.

One time, she and her husband went to her husband’s family’s house in Wakenaam for a wedding. They were there for two days with other friends and were treated hospitably, however, one of the uncle’s begun banging on the door to the bedroom they were in late one night, shouting, “I want the black Burnham girl outta deh.”

She became so frightened by the racial slurs and loud banging that they immediately left, even after the host and other guests tried to dissuade them.

Suzanne said while things are definitely better than they were in past years for interracial couples, there is still much work to be done to truly breed acceptance.

“We need to be more tolerant of others and enlarge our circle of love. Too often we love our family and friends but show little or no compassion or tolerance to strangers or others who are different.”

She believes that conscious efforts should be made at the community and village level in an effort to have youths from varying backgrounds and ethnicities interact at an early age.

“We should celebrate our differences. I always told our children that they had the best of both of their parents and I do believe that, I hope they do.”

Of course, her marriage has had its challenges, but she credits her husband as being a good man who is a great provider and father to their children who are aged 28, 25 and 14.

Speaking about her children, Suzanne said that when they were born, “I would make up special songs for each of them. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t sing I always tried for them. I taught them hymns and Sunday school songs and read to them at night. I wanted to be the best that I could for them.”

Being very faith based, Suzanne explained that going to school and church was non-negotiable in their home. Only in sickness or in the event of something extremely important would she allow one to miss church. “If you could go to party and stay out late you could go to church,” she said, adding that her two eldest children are both University graduates while the youngest currently attends Bishops High School.

One of her regrets was never being able to teach her children to cook as she herself was not very domesticated. “I was also not very good at plaiting the girls hair; they had long thick hair. When I sent them to school with one hair style, they came home with another.”

While Suzanne tried her best to stay at home, the fact remained that she was a working mother and as such, often had to balance too many things at a time.

“Once, I was attending a board meeting at the YWCA and I suddenly remembered my baby had to be picked up by a certain time. When I reached to the day care, the caregiver was at the gate with my daughter, the place was locked up and everyone had left. I felt very embarrassed. I made sure that this never happened again,” she said.

For many years, in an effort to ensure her children had the things they needed, Suzanne sacrificed and often left herself wanting as her children’s needs were more important than her own. At one point she only owned one working shoe, one walking sneakers and one church shoe, continuously saving money so as to send her children to private school.
“When I enrolled them, at the time I felt that they had a better chance of doing well as they were late starters. It was sometime during that period that my younger daughter said that since they were going to private school, like this fridge only had ice and water.”

While they never lacked food, they could never afford to stock up their fridge and many times, she and her husband went without to ensure that the children ate.

Despite the many sacrifices she was already making, Suzanne along with her husband decided that she would build a new home as she had inherited houses from her adopted parents and wanted to do the same for her children.

While Suzanne and her family are by no means rich, they certainly are more comfortable than they have been in years. Owing their success and happiness to their strong faith and love for each other.