Premier Dr. the Honourable Natalio Wheatley has commended authors throughout the Virgin Islands for doing their part to preserve the history of the territory for future generations through their writing.
The premier’s commendations came during the launch of Marilin Malone Bass’ book “Boundless Childhood Joy: Tales from In and Around the Garden”, as he was among some of the guest speakers for the occasion.
He said, “Very recently we’ve had a number of publications of persons who have spoken about growing up in the Virgin Islands when things were far different… some persons who have recently come to the Virgin Islands or maybe even the children of parents and grandparents who may not know how the Virgin Islands used to be in the past.”
“They may think that the Virgin Islands of today always existed, but the Virgin Islands of the past helped shape who we are today and certainly we have to remember the values that we grew up with, the values that kept us together as a community and the values that were the seeds of our success here in the Virgin Islands,” Premier Wheatley added.
While encouraging the authors already involved in the process, Dr. Wheatley also urged others to get involved and add their accounts to the documentation of life across the territory through the decades.
“I encourage the public, those persons who have a knowledge of our past from various areas of the Virgin Islands to go ahead and write for the benefit of the younger generations. So that which we had in the past, that helped to shape us, we may never lose and we may always have knowledge of,” he said.