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"Back home, I was just a house wife but I wanted more," Sybil Bernard-Kerrutt told this writer during a casual conversation in City Hall, after receiving an award from the Guyana Tri-State Alliance in May 2000. "I knew I was going to do much better abroad," she added.
At the age of 33, with nine small children to feed, Sybil Bernard-Kerrutt left Guyana for the brighter horizons of the United States of America on a student visa to fulfill her dreams as a cosmetologist. Carrying her belongings in a single suitcase Sybil went from Station Street, Guyana to New York City, USA. Two years later her nine children joined her, "I never stopped writing to themevery week I sent them a letter," she reminisced joyfully.
With great determination, she said she worked at a jewelry factory, while taking evening classes to earn a degree in cosmetology. With that determination, she managed to save up enough money to make a down payment towards her first house in Far Rockaway. "It was in the kitchen of the Far Rockaway home that the idea of a bakery business was born," said Cecil Kerrutt, husband of the late and popular businesswoman, during a private interview at the Flatbush Ave. Bakery/Restaurant.
Nearly twenty-five years ago, Sybil's Bakery/Restaurant took birth with the selling of "plait" (a thick, braid shaped egg-loaf Guyanese bread) to a small circle of friends and relatives.
"The family kitchen was transformed into a make shift bakeryand the kids had their part to play," said Kerrutt with a smile. All nine children were mixing an
d
rolling bread on a formica table. "I had to set aside a
few hours every weekend for delivery in a used car," he
continued. At present he puts "a minimum of 12 hours a day,
6 days a week," he said.After twenty years of dating, "we got married in 1992," Kerrutt added.
As the West Indian and Caribbean communities began growing, so did Sybil's Bakery. Presently there are four stores throughout the New York area.
"Our dishes are mainly Guyanese/Caribbean" style food," said Kerrut.
This is the best food outside of home," said Levi Walkes, a satisfied customer who "must eat" there at lest once a month. "The Sorrell (Caribbean natural fruit) drink is very close to that of Barbados," continued the Barbadian New Yorker.
"She doesn't like people to know she's the ownershe would sit in the stores sometimes without anyone knowing who she was," Kerrutt continued. "She cared a lot for peopleshe employed all types of people."
he added, "Sometime it seems as if people would come from Guyana and around the Caribbean countries and comes straight to Sybil's for workShe never turned anyone away. Even when she doesn't have work for them, she [did not] send them away empty-handed."
Was she a good boss? "I worked for her for the past 15 years in the same positionshe's a hard working person," said Ovid Small, wholesale supervisor at the Flatbush Ave., Brooklyn store. "She was very strict and tried for perfection," Small continued.
"We had our difference of opinions[but] she's very sincere and fair minded...Sybil was very modestan excellent womanshe's a sweetheart," Kerrutt said, unable to contain his emotions and tears.
"She was very nice, and a popular ladyshe never treated me bad," said Babzi, one of the cooks at the Richmond Hill restaurant, who was hired immediately after going to Sybil's in search of work.
"If you don't get the work done she gets upsetshe's very quiet but don't mash [step on] her toes," responded Tessa Maynard, a waitress/cashier for the past three years at the Flatbush bakery/restaurant.
"I would say all her employee love her," added Kerrutt.
"I called Sybil up one day and told her 'there's a place coming up for sale.' Her first response was, 'I can't buy itI don't have that kind of money,'" reminisced Ramesh Kalicharran, during a phone conversation. After a bit of encouragement and her brother's intervention, in 1978 Sybil became the proud owner of the store on Hillside Ave..
"She's a very grateful person for whatever little someone did for her," continued Kalicharran.
Success grew in leaps and bounds from there forward. She opened subsequently, bakeries in 1982, 1989 and 1992 throughout the city.
Never forgetting Kalicharran's helpful gesture, in 1997, while on a trip to India, land of her fore-parents, with hubby Cecil and brother David, she said to him "I am really grateful to you for giving me that push," referring to her first bakery/restaurant on Hillside Ave. business.
Kalicharran further stated that Sybil herself always tried "to help everyone," in the community. "Whatever she can do, she will doshe always helps in all different phase in the communityshe doesn't look at itas political or notshe tried to help everyone," Kalicharran continued.
While in India, her brother, David, and his wife were so overwhelmed that they chose to renew their marriage vows according to Hindu rites. In keeping with the tradition, Sybil got dressed up in a Salwar Kameez for the wedding. "'For the first time in my life, I am doing something Hindu,'" she said to Kalicharran. She continued, "My dream came trueI always wanted to visit India before I died." She had been brought up as a Christian.
"It would be much more difficult to duplicate the family success these days given the proliferation of ethnic bakeries and restaurant in West Indian neighborhoodwe started at the right time," said Kerrutt.
In the early days there were only a few places catering to the growing West Indian population. Working out of her cramped Rockaway kitchen Sybil had to accommodate a Caribbean community's appetite. Today "Sybil's is a house holds nameI would like to think that her kids will continue her kindness," Kerrutt responded, when asked whether anything will anything be different now that she's not here to serve her community.
For quite some time, Sybil's health was failing her. "Most of the time I'm here she was sickso I never had much encounter with her," Maynard said.
Some months ago, Sybil suffered a stroke, for which she was hospitalized at Long Island Jewish Hospital. She was then released under the care of her family, where "she died quietly at her eldest daughter's home in Coram Long Island," said Kerrutt.
Sybil Bernard-Kerrutt, 65, died on October 12th, 2000, and is survived by her "nine children, thirty plus grandchildren and one great grand," said Kerrutt.
"The family's cooleveryone's doing alright," said Cookie, Sybil's second son, whose reputation as a working manager, is a testament to his dear mother's great work ethic.
At the wake attended by a cross section of the Caribbean community, one of Guyana's more well known singer, Johnny Braf, reminisced with his popular "Love Is A Thing That Burns Inside" Dedicated to his childhood friend, Sybil Bernard-Kerrut, the song may well have been giving words to the unspoken feelings of the thousands who had been touched by this simple, generous woman whose success did not cause her to lose the common touch.