VIOLA VICTORINE BURNHAM

Viola Victorine Burnham, nee Harper, (informally: ‘Comrade Vi’) was teacher, farmer, politician and an advocate of women's causes. She became a national figure when she became the wife of the Prime Minister.

She was born on November 26, 1930 in New Amsterdam, Berbice to James Nathaniel Harper, a schoolmaster, and his wife Mary (neé Chin). She attended All Saints Scots School and later the Berbice High School, with the aid of a Government County Scholarship. After the death of her father, the family moved to Georgetown and she attended Smith Church Congregational School. Again she won a Government County Scholarship, which took her this time to the Bishops' High School where she earned her advanced levels at the GCE exams.

She then worked at the Argosy newspaper. Fellow journalists there included Henry Josiah, Billy Carto, Olga Armstrong, Hector Bunyan, and Connie Theobald.

When Viola quit journalism at the Argosy she turned to teaching. She taught for four years, starting 1950, Broad Street (renamed Dolphin) Government School.

 A conditional scholarship took her to the United Kingdom where she earned the Bachelor of Arts (Hons) degree in Latin at Leicester University in the UK. After four years in the UK, she studied for the Master of Arts in Education degree from the University of Chicago, USA, where she became a Member of the Pi Lambda Thera Honor Society.

She was senior Latin mistress at Bishops' High School in 1967 when she married  Forbes Burnham, Prime Minister (later President) of Guyana. Her husband died  in 1985.  The union resulted in two daughters, Melanie and Ulele.

Mrs. Burnham entered active politics in 1976. She became Chairman of the Women's Revolutionary Socialist Movement (WRSM), the women's arm of the PNC and was a member of the Central Executive Committee of the PNC representing the WRSM.

In 1985, following the death of President Burnham, she was appointed Vice President and Deputy Prime Minister with responsibility for Education, Social Development - including Women's Affairs and Culture - by Burnham’s successor, President Desmond Hoyte. That same year she was elected a member of the National Assembly. In 1989 she was appointed Vice-President, Ministry of Culture and Social Development. In July 199, she resigned.

Her involvement in the Hoyte administration was very important as it signaled that she would not be part of a revolt within the PNC of those who were not happy with Hoyte's departure form her late husband's policies, and this, in spite of being uncomfortable with some of the changes.

After retiring from active politics she devoted her energies to farming and to her other favored pursuits of painting and design.

For her contribution to the country's development she had been awarded the country's second highest honor, the Order of Roraima, in 1984.

Viola Burnham died, age 72, in Miami, Florida, USA on October 10, 2003 after succumbing to cancer following a long illness.   

MARTIN WYLDE CARTER
1927-1997

Martin Carter, widely regarded as Guyana's most important poet, was educated at Queen's College, Georgetown. He was Information Officer for the Booker Group of Companies in Guyana, and later Minister of Information and Culture in the Guyana Government.

He was detained on political grounds following the suspension of the British Guiana constitution in 1953. While in prison wrote a series of  powerful poems of social protest which were published as Poems of Resistance (1954). The impact of these poems were so great that Carter became famous internationally. Poems of Resistance and his subsequent work have been translated into many languages including Russian, German and Chinese.

The June, 2000 issue of the Guyana journal Kyk-Over-Al (Number 49/50) devotes 411 pages to the life and work of Martin Carter. 

DR. PTOLEMY ALEXANDER REID,  OE, MRCVS, DVM
1918 - 2003
Veterinarian, politician, teacher

 Dr. Ptolemy Reid, teacher, veterinarian and politician. was an unusual person in the political world of Guyana. He was generally regarded as a sincere, honest and caring person, often by those who were  politically opposed to him and his ideas.

Dr. Reid served as Prime Minister, Deputy Leader and General Secretary of the People’s National Congress (PNC) – the party led by Forbes Burnham. It was evident that the relationship of the two men was tempered by mutual respect. 

Dr. Reid  held a number of important ministerial portfolios including those of Home Affairs, Finance and Agriculture. When the 1980 Constitution came into effect and Forbes Burnham became President, Dr. Reid was appointed Prime Minister.  He retired from the office of Prime Minister in 1984 and was appointed to the vacant position of Deputy Leader. Desmond Hoyte succeeded him as Prime Minister. 

Ptolemy Reid was born on May 8, 1918 to Herman and Marion Reid at the village of  Dartmouth on the Essequibo Coast.  He studied at the Tuskegee Institute at Tuskegee, Alabama in the United States, where he became a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. On his return home to British Guiana, he was unable to find suitable employment and so he proceeded to the United Kingdom and satisfied the requirements for membership of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. On his return to Guyana, he was employed as a vet by Bookers Sugar Estates in 1958. 

Dr Reid joined the PNC in 1960.

After his retirement in 1984, he lived a quiet life and was often referred to as an "elder statesman." The Ptolemy Reid Rehabilitation Centre, located at Church & Carmichael Streets, Cummingsburg, Georgetown was named after Dr. Reid. The center gives therapy and basic education to children with cerebral palsy and those with physical disabilities.

Following the death of his first wife, Ruth, Dr. Reid married his childhood sweetheart, Marjorie. She died on May 25, 2003, leaving him a widower for the second time. 

Towards the end of his life, Dr. Reid suffered a stroke and was admitted to the Suddie hospital. He was later returned to his home at Atlantic Gardens where he died on Tuesday, September 2, 2003 aged 85.