Cedella Booker

<h2>Biography</h2>

Booker was born Sidilla Editha Malcolm in Rhoden Hall, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Ann_Parish" title="Saint Ann Parish">Saint Ann Parish</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaica" title="Jamaica">Jamaica</a>, daughter Albertha Whilby and Omeriah Malcolm, a farmer, a "bush doctor", and one of the most respected residents of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Mile,Jamaica" title="Nine Mile, Jamaica">Nine Mile</a> (son of Robert "Uncle Day" Malcolm, who descended from the Cromanty slaves shipped to Jamaica from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Coast%28region%29" title="Gold Coast (region)">African Gold Coast</a> in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries). At 18, Cedella Malcolm married <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norval_Sinclair_Marley" title="Norval Sinclair Marley" class="mw-redirect">Norval Sinclair Marley</a>, a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Jamaican" title="White Jamaican">white Jamaican</a> of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_people" title="British people">British</a> and rumored <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Jews" title="Syrian Jews">Syrian Jewish</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedella_Booker#cite_note-2">[2]</a> descent, whose father's family came from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England" title="England">England</a>; the family of his mother, Ellen Marley (née Broomfield), came from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levant" title="Levant">Levant</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedella_Booker#cite_note-3">[3]</a> She became pregnant with his son, Robert Nesta (whose second <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Given_name" title="Given name">given name</a> "Nesta" means prophetically "wise messenger"). Norval Marley was an officer as well as the plantation overseer. His family applied constant pressure however, and although he provided financial support for them, the Captain seldom saw his wife and son.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedella_Booker#cite_note-BobFather-4">[4]</a> Bob was ten years old when Norval died of a heart attack in 1955 at age 70.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedella_Booker#cite_note-BobFather-4">[4]</a> Cedella and Bob then moved to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trenchtown" title="Trenchtown">Trenchtown</a>, a slum neighborhood in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston,_Jamaica" title="Kingston, Jamaica">Kingston</a>. This was the only place Booker could afford to live at the time, being a young woman moving from the country to the big city on her own.

While living in Trenchtown, Booker gave birth to a daughter, Pearl, with Taddeus Livingston, the father of Bunny Livingston – aka <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunny_Wailer" title="Bunny Wailer">Bunny Wailer</a> – who formed the original <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wailers_%281963-1974_band%29" title="The Wailers (1963-1974 band)" class="mw-redirect">Wailers</a> trio with Bob Marley and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Tosh" title="Peter Tosh">Peter Tosh</a> in 1963.

Cedella Booker

Attachments