Various records show Isaac Clement Lobo's occupation as Merchant's Clerk and as Merchant.  In any case, he made a very successful career in the shipping business, and by all accounts, was well respected in the community.  He traveled with his wife and daughters to the U.S.A on more than one occasion to visit his family who had emigrated there. Certainly by 1907, he had bought their spacious family home called "Morehouse" in 9th Avenue Belleville.  He later purchased "Raeburn" on the Hastings coast, where he and Lillian lived with their unmarried children, and where he died on 9 January 1943 when he was 72.    According to my mother, when Isaac Clement died, he left Lillian a very comfortable estate which comprised several properties.  These included "Calcachima" - a seaside property located on the south coast next door to where the Accra Hotel is now, "Raeburn" in Hastings, "Moorehouse" in Belleville, as well as another property at the corner of 10th Avenue Belleville and Pine Road called "Govan."  There are many entertaining tales to be told about cocktail parties and family gatherings by all of us who knew our great-grandmother Lillian Lobo and our great aunts and uncles whom we met at "Raeburn".  We all remember that trap door in the kitchen floor of "Raeburn"  that led down a dark, dank staircase of worn stone steps, finally opening on to the beach, close to the Ocean View Hotel.  It was exciting for all of us who experienced with trepidation feeling our way down, the odd red crab scurrying away, and finally seeing the strip of bright sunlight and sound of the ocean, indicating we'd reached the beach! 

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Lobos and The Peddlers in Barbados

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For now, I shall recount just one small but significant memory told me by my mother, Betty (St. Hill) Sheppard.  My mother fondly recalls her visits to her Lobo grandparents when they lived at "Raeburn", Hastings and would spend a lot of time with them.  She loved all the fuss and attention showered on her by her grandmother and especially her spinster aunts, who had no children of their own.

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As a young child, she vividly remembers seeing a mahogany bookcase with shelves of several "special looking"  leather-bound books  which were written in Hebrew.  Fascinated and curious about  them, she asked what they were all about.  She was told that they were her great-grandfather Daniel's Jewish books that he used at the Synagogue.  Excited to think there was some precious heirloom somewhere in our family's possession, I asked my mother what ever became of the books.  The story goes that nobody understood what they were about, and Judaism was not their faith.  The old books were just sitting there, collecting dust.  Around that time, there were Jewish peddlers who would come regularly to the Lobo's door in Hastings selling their goods.  My great-aunts who lived there, thought it would be a nice thing to give away the books to these friendly Jewish itinerant salesmen.  After all, the Lobos certainly had no use for them and they thought that one of these men might like to have them.  Knowing my great-aunts Hilda and Carmen, I am sure they had struck up a friendly rapport with these gentlemen, and also purchased laces, ribbons and other notions from them, as Aunt Hilda was a gifted seamstress.  She knitted, did fancy embroidery work and sewed most of my mother's clothes and various costumes when she was growing up.  She even sewed her pretty organza wedding dress in 1943.

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Daniel Lobo's 19th century Jewish books might very well have ended up in the homes of such gentlemen as  Mr. Joe Kreindler or Mr. Henry Altman and are no doubt long gone.  Now that I have learnt more about our family history, I rather love the idea of those Hebrew books belonging to my Sephardic Jewish ancestor being passed on to one or more of the first Ashkenazi Jewish settlers in Barbados.  My dear, sweet old great-aunts would have been unaware of the significance of their gesture, but to me it was quite serendipitous.

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