By the time Dame Maizie Barker Welch was conferred with the Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) honour in 2014, she had blazed a trail in various field in Barbados.
And on the occasion of her passing at 96 years, it is those milestones which stand out in the life of the diminutive woman, a mere 5’1”, who stood tall among her peers.
Dame Maizie was a school teacher – fluent in Spanish – Parliamentarian, women’s rights activist and an advocate for the care of the elderly.
The mother of four and widow of late Pedro Welch, chaired the National Commission on Ageing and the Royal Commonwealth Society. She was a former president of the National Organisation of Women and Barbados’ representative at the first UN Conference for Women on Population Development in 1973. She was also conferred with an honorary doctorate by the University of the West Indies.
Dame Maizie defied the odds in the 1986 General Election as a candidate for the Democratic Labour Party (DLP), when she defeated Speaker of the House of Assembly Lindsay Bolden who held the seat for the Barbados Labour Party for 16 years.
In an interview with The Nation she noted: “Winning that election seat and sitting alongside the (now deceased and) then DLP Leader the Hon. Errol arrow, in the Lower House, was unquestionably the highlight of my entire political career.”
As a member of the DLP, she served as a Senator, chairperson of the Democratic League of Women and first vice president.
For many years, she was a faithful congregant of Clifton Hill Methodist Church.
In 2022, she was honoured by the Organisation of American States and the InterAmerican Commission of Women (CIM) for her lasting contribution to the CIM for which she served as principal delegate of Barbados from 1986 to 1995; vice-president from 1986 to 1988 and president from 1990 to 1992.
Dame Maizie counted the death of her husband Pedro in 2005 as the saddest moment.
“I met Pedro at Queen’s Park when I was just 19 years old. He was 20 and working as a clerk in the employment office there and I needed to use the telephone. We met, discovered we both shared a birthday on September 17th, and were together from then on, almost 60 years in all,” she said in that interview.
She also had a love for gardening and was a member of the Barbados Horticultural Society. (SAT)
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