April 7, 2009 — Few Virgin Islanders can claim, like Ernest Wells, to have been born citizens of Denmark. But then, few people manage to hang around this Earth for an entire century.
Well turns 100 years old on Wednesday, an event that will be celebrated Saturday with a party at T'ree Lizards Restaurant at Cinnamon Bay Campground.
"God spared my life," he said.
Wells was born at Gifft Hill, but lived in several locations on St. John as well as Lovango Cay. He would have been 7 years old when the Virgin Islands became part of the United States in March 1917 after being sold by the Danish government.
Lovango Cay was where he met his late wife, Linea.
"I used to go to Lovango to spree," Wells said — it was a place to party, in other words.
The couple had four children. Warren Wells and Margaret Wells still live on St. John; she works at the Legislature. The other two, June and Winston, were outlived by their father. Winston Wells was an acclaimed softball player whose name headlines Winston Wells Ballfield in Cruz Bay.
Wells also has six grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.
He now lives in Cruz Bay, with his two remaining children serving as caregivers. Blind due to cataracts, and wheelchair-bound after losing part of a leg to diabetes, he spends days on his own while his children are at work. They both work in Cruz Bay and can make quick visits during the day.
For most of his life he had sight only in one eye. He was hit in the head by flying debris during a hurricane while living at the Hermitage, the Lockhart family estate in the Coral Bay area.
"Nineteen twenty-four," he said, the year of that hurricane.
He attended school in Coral Bay until the sixth grade, at the time the highest grade on St. John. He also attended Lincoln School on St. Thomas.
Wells grew up during a time when St. John residents worked at whatever came along. He spent 15 years doing maintenance at Caneel Bay Resort, worked at the Public Works and the Housing, Parks and Recreation departments, and crewed on the mail boat that sailed to Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas three times a week to pick up St. John's mail.
He was also a fisherman, fishing with a seine and line on Lovango and other places around St. John. While living on Lovango, he commuted to St. John with his children so he could work and they could go to school.
Warren Wells remembers those trips. "It was a nine-foot boat with a little five-horsepower engine," he said, and the entire family managed to fit in it.
He said his father is the best dad anyone could have.
"He has the unique ability to cope with stress. He's cooler than Barack," he said, referring to President Obama.
His daughter, Margaret Wells, called her father an inspiration.
"He has been there every time," she said.
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