Barely missing becoming a leap year baby, Lucille Joycelyn
Daphne Liverpool was born February 28, 1928, in the small
town of Ithaca, Berbice, Guyana. The only child of Webster
and Hilda (Cousin Avril) Cleaver, she was raised in a home of
loving but strict adherence to discipline, school, and church.
After moving to nearby New Amsterdam, her father ran a
successful funeral home, and her mother took on extra jobs
to send her to Berbice High, the top secondary school in her
home of New Amsterdam. She used the values of hard work
and family unity as guiding principles throughout her long,
storied life.
Lucille met her husband of 63 years, Herman, at a funeral.
Cousin Iris Rodney served as the facilitator who transported
the letters of courtship between the two. They dated for almost
ten years before tying the knot quietly at a country church.
They moved to England shortly after where she supported
Herman in his studies and started their family. Their first
son Hugh was born shortly after their arrival, but would later
succumb to asthma at the age of 13. Upon the death of her
father, Lucille returned to Guyana alone with Hugh and gave
birth to her second child Lorraine. However, due to the civil
unrest occurring in the country, she returned to England
with the children and continued to build a life supporting her
husband while continuing her own education.
Lucille pursued several careers throughout her life, never
afraid to take on the challenge of advancing her education
and remaining educationally relevant. After graduation from
Berbice High School, she became a nurse midwife, a career
she continued after moving to England. She later followed
another interest and earned a diploma in institutional
management. When she returned to Guyana with her family
in the early 1970s, she became director of catering services
at Cyril Potter College of Education, where she served until
she migrated with her family to St. Augustine, Florida, in the
early 1980s.
In St. Augustine, Lucille found herself in the dilemma of
being overqualified for the jobs available, so she made the decision to return to school at the St. Augustine Vocational