Albert Edmund Glenn

Albert Edmund Glenn was born in Beterverwagting (B.V) Guyana, South America on January 22^nd, 1935 to Muriel Profitt (deceased) and Albert Glenn (deceased). While his mother was pursuing her teaching career, young Albert was raised by his Aunt Olga Elgin in B.V where he attended St. Mary’s U Virgin Anglican School and Church, where his mother was also a teacher.  While attending St. Mary’s, Albert became an altar boy where he met his best buddy Compton “Benji” Benjamin. During their “small days”, Albert and Benji would get into mischief which lead to their life-long friendship and brotherhood of over 70 years.

After leaving St. Mary’s, Albert worked his first job as a train engineer at Transport and Harbours Department (T&HD) from 1955-1964 under the guidance of his father. Albert met many people along the way and gave special treatment to his family and close friends moving them to “first class” as they traveled since everyone knew and loved the charismatic and generous Albert. In addition to being a train engineer, he also did bookkeeping at T&HD. However, it was his love of being in different places and traveling which lead him to move to North America.

In 1965, Albert moved to Ottawa, Canada where he worked as a Diagnostic Technician with ESSO and also as an Orderly at Ottawa Civic Hospital. While in Ottawa, more friends from his “small days” including Benji, would come together and “lime” and “gaph” while also making new lifelong friends from the Caribbean.  The bond between these friends would have Albert talking about various topics, with the biggest being politics. So Albert then became “Garvey” short for Marcus Garvey, but the only person that would call him “Marcus” was Benji.  Garvey would talk politics for hours upon hours. Garvey was also the Vice President of the Guyanese Association in Ottawa and was also known as “The Mayor” of Ottawa. He even had friends in the diplomatic circles in Canada.

In 1969,  he moved to Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A where he began his career in electronics and broadcast communications. It was in Brooklyn, where he rekindled his friendship with Daphne Sparman a nurse from Guyana he had known from back in his days in Guyana. On March 3, 1973 Garvey and Daphne married in Harlem, New York.

In 1976, Garvey and Daphne moved to a new development in Central Islip, New York which was built from the ground up and recommended by one of Garvey’s old B.V. village friend’s Grace Cush (Elliot). Grace also happened to be their immediate next door neighbor when they moved to Central Islip and Garvey affectionately coined her his “sister”. Garvey also adopted his new neighbors Carolyn and Alvin “Al” Dixon (deceased) and their children into his already large Guyanese family.

While living in Central Islip, Garvey worked at Applied Digital Data Systems (ADDS)- a computer company, for many years in the neighboring town of Hauppauge. His position at ADDS as a Computer Engineer afforded him the opportunity to travel taking him to 5 continents and learning various cultures which he’d speak on. While at ADDS, he served as a mentor to many in the systems engineering field and even had two of his sons working at the same company, similar to how his father did with him. After leaving ADDS, he then continued to Chyron, another computer company, that took him to work the Olympic games in France, The World Cup Soccer games in Mexico and many other countries until he officially retired.

Wanting to keep active while retired, Garvey and his friend Joe Feller from Chyron decided to explore an entirely different career path working part time at Suffolk County Bus corporation as bus matrons. The stories Garvey would have from his daily route had everyone crying with laughter anytime he would meet up with them. Garvey also filed taxes for his own children and wife, and when he did taxes for friends he would charge them only a “small piece”.  Garvey also served several years a Board of Elections Inspector which he wore with honor.

Garvey also became very active at The Episcopal Church of Messiah in Central Islip. He held a position as an Administrative Assistant, was a Lay Reader, did book keeping, and was a founding member of The Scholarship Committee. However, the one activity that kept him active was being a member of The Men’s Group. The Men’s Group would do annual party boat rides and fishing trips. Yet, on these same trips he never came home with any fish that he “caught”. Whenever you would call to look for Garvey he was always having a “meeting” with the Men’s Group. The meetings would start after church and then always end at Garvey’s house with “water” as he would call “it” and food being served.

Garvey was very family oriented, friendly and would ALWAYS have a joke no matter where and what the situation was. He would drum up a conversation with ANY and everyone and also tell great stories, even if he “altered” the story, it was enjoyable, and people would gather around just to hear him speak. One of the things that Garvey was known for was giving almost everyone a nickname. His close family friend Olga “Dolly” Reuben was coined “Bones”. One of his close friends from Canada was “Sharky” and another friend, Edgar Henry was “Gar”. This was Garvey’s jovial and affectionate way of addressing people close to him. Even while watching one of his new favorite shows “The Have and The Have Nots”, he had a nickname for the main character as if he knew her personally. That’s just how Garvey was which was a great characteristic about him. Garvey was also very  “frugal”. He can make a dollar out of 15 cents, and an entire meal with dessert from an apple and a can of sardines. Even on his plane trips traveling back to Guyana and his road trips to family in Canada and Washington D.C,  he would always pack his snack bag and say “I ent buyin nah outside food”. Garvey was also very simple. He did not like to wear a “suit jacket” nor a tie. Because of his simplicity, his favorite outfit for any formal event was a Shirtjack and pants which was also what he wanted to wear when it was “his time”.

Garvey was instrumental in the lives of the young boys that he lived on his street in Central Islip, treated them as his own and even gave them “licks” at one time. However, these same young boys became appreciative of “Mr. Glenn” and “Uncle Garvey” because he encouraged them to learn a trade as he knew college wasn’t for everyone. For that, Alvin “Peppy”, Arthur, Carl and Gregory have always had the highest and deepest level of respect and appreciation for him.

As Garvey approached his mid 70’s to early mid 80’s, he would enjoy his time in his computer room spending all hours of the night into the mornings on the “information highway” emailing jokes and calling all of his friends on what he would call “this stupidy phone” even when his eyesight became very challenging. He would listen to oldies and church hymns, do his gardening, babysit his grandchildren and take his walks. However, it was his love of traveling back home to Guyana that kept him going. He would say “This place too cold..ah goin back home”.

Albert is survived by his loving wife Daphne Glenn of 49 years.

Sister: Celeste Trim

Children: Albert Glenn, John Glenn, O’Neill Glenn, Michael Glenn, Jacqueline Glenn-McIntire, Marc Glenn, Dennis Glenn, Denise Glenn-Yearwood, Gordon Glenn, Roxanne Joseph Glenn, Joy Glenn Harry, Patrick Glenn and Rhonda Glenn-Nedderman.

Grandchildren: Rodney, Albert Jr, Devin, Kali, O’Neill, Deja, Jermal, Kareem, Zante, Shintaro, Kotaro, Erin, Pearson, Jordan, Gordon, Gebria, Kristian, Kelson, Kameron, Kobe, Jordan, Austin, Maia, Christopher, Cameron, Celina and Cainan; Two great grandchildren; God-children: Carol Reuben-Gravesande, Raul Henry, and Cuthbert Ince Jr. Several loving nieces and nephews, and very close family and friends.