Beatrice Ruby DeWitt
(by her husband, Mr. Desmond Paul Pereira)
August 1999I was friendly with Ruby and her family during the days of our childhood in the 1930's when both our families lived in the Malacca suburb of Kelebang Kecil. Then we were separated for some time while I attended Raffles College in Singapore. We met again when Japanese bombs were falling on Malacca town, and both our families coincidentally sought refuge from the bombs in a village about nine miles from the town. But even then I did not anticipate I would be marrying her, which I did towards the end of the Japanese occupation.
It was not a matter of "love at first sight", a romantic notion which sometimes leads to disillusionment, but a love which developed and grew as we entered adulthood.
We moved from Malacca to Johor when I was offered a teaching position in Muar, and we lived in three different towns in Johor (except for two periods when I was engaged in study abroad) from 1946 to 1972, the year when Ruby succumbed to the autoimmune disease with a long name, but in short form known as "lupus", a condition which at the time was not yet as well-known to medical science as it is now.
Ruby never went to work outside the home, and was therefore able to spend all her time looking after the home and bringing up our three children, Robert, Genevieve and Christopher, all three of whom now have their own families.
In appearence, Ruby was of above average height for women in Malaysia, and was regarded as of remarkable beauty, which she retained until her ailment disfigured her. She was, to be frank, rather short-tempered, but she made up for this by being charitable to some people she considered disadvantaged. Though not very pious, she was commited to her religion, and never failed to attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation. One of her traits which I cannot forget was her love for Christmas, which was always an occasion in our home for real celebration, and during the days when I was the principal of the Muar High School, she had to help me entertain up to sixty persons at the same time on Christmas evenings.
Though she never had music lessons, she was very fond of music and singing of the popular type, and she did show some appreciation of some of the classical music of which I was fond.
A prominent politician said some time ago that beautiful women should not be considered for good jobs as they were able to secure rich husbands. Ruby chose me as her husband at a time during the last days of the Japanese occupation when I was desperately poor. And it took us several years before we could consider our lives even comfortable. Ruby stuck to me, and I to her, "in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, until her death did us part".
Desmond Paul Pereira was born in Malacca in December, 1922. He was educated in the Malacca High School, Raffles College Singapore, the University of Malaya in Singapore and Stanford University, California.
He served as a teacher and headmaster in Johor from 1946 to 1973, excluding periods of study abroad, and as lecturer in the Institute of Education in Singapore from 1974 to 1981.
Now a widower, living in retirement in Johot Bahru, he still lives a busy life and indulges considerably in writing.
Taken from 'The Sun Rises The Sun Sets' by Desmond Paul Pereira.
