Eileen Busby Keita Funeral Service

BEULAH LAND INTERNATIONAL CHURCH

6 WESTMORELAND HOUSE, CUMBERLAND BUSINESS PARK. SCRUBS LANE, LONDON, UK, NW10 6RE.

 

SATURDAY 20 JUNE 2020, 11:30 AM GMT

​ORDER OF SERVICE

 

Open Musical Selection……………………………….,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, “I won’t complain”

       Performed by:  Russell White

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Opening Prayer…………………………………………….................... Apostle Dominic

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Hymn ………………………………………………………....................… “How Great Thou Art”

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Scripture Reading……………………………………......................… Apostle Francis

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Hymn   …………………………………………………........................... “Blessed Assurance”   

                                           

Reflections from Family and Friends

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Musical Selection ……………………………………………………….   “That’s What Friends Are For”

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Remarks………………………………………………………………………… Apostle Francis   

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Words of Comfort…………………………………………………………. Apostle Francis

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Hymn …………………………………………………………………………….”Amazing Grace”

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Blessing and Dismissal………………………………

FUNERAL SERVICE

Jamil Keita

Eileen Busby Keita

Daniso Nchama

Maximilian Nchama

Leah Nchama

About Eileen...
Eileen Busby Keita, 10 June 1943-24 May 2020 ​
We all stand with loss engraved on our heart - loss of a mother, sister, friend, and companion to her immediate family and to all others who became her grand family over the years. Eileen, you lived your life for us all showing us all what love, empathy,  sympathy, understanding,  generosity, unselfishness, mentorship, inspiration all grounded in your faith and beliefs really mean. Just thinking of you and the loss we feel causes us to reflect, and in reflection we remember, and  in remembering we all feel that we know that you would want us all to live our lives in the same spirit of love for others that you displayed to all whose lives were touched by You. You live on in our memories and can never be forgotten. Rest in glorious peace.
Your brother George.
For as long as I have been on this planet Eileen was by my physical and/or spiritual side - my big sister, my protector, my champion, my confidante, my best friend - but I know I am not alone in this deep sense of loss I feel so keenly. Everyone who came into contact with her - from virtual strangers to casual acquaintances to her closest friends and family - experienced her never-ending generosity, her unflinching loyalty, her boundless energy, the eternal optimism she radiated, her wry sense of humour and her unconditional love. Eileen, you were always the greatest connector, and those you have left behind are now joined even closer together in missing you and loving you, while being forever grateful to have had you in our lives us for so many years.
Your sister Margaret
Eileen was born on Thursday, 10 June 1943, in Cape Coast, Ghana (then a British colony as the Gold Coast), to Mrs Sarah (née Christian) and Dr George Busby. The middle child of three, Eileen had an older brother – George – and younger sister, Margaret. During the children’s pre-school years, the family lived in the small town of Suhum, where their father had set up a clinic catering for the medical needs of the surrounding rural areas. There were few modern amenities but early lessons in sharing and caring were plentiful. At Dr Busby’s right hand was his wife, a trained nurse, and the children’s help was often enlisted for minor tasks in the dispensary.
Through their parents’ hard work and sacrifices, George, Eileen and Margaret were educated in Britain, first attending Westholme School in Arnside, in the Lake District (where fellow pupils Muriel, Francis and Cathleen were the children of another Gold Coast doctor, Irish-born Albert Hawe and his African wife Margaret née Barette).[1]
After the closure of Westholme School, the two sisters attended Charters Towers School in Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex – a girls’ international boarding-school school (that unlike others at that time in Britain had no qualms about taking black pupils) where their acceptance was sealed by the fact they shared first names with the headmistress and her deputy: Miss Eileen McGarry and Miss Margaret Steinitz.
While their parents were working continuously to fund their education, unable to afford constant trips between England and Ghana, Eileen and her siblings spent happy times in a holiday-home called Old Farm Place, in East Sussex. This was run by writer Verily Anderson, who after being widowed not only raised her own five children but also took in other children who for various reasons could not always be with their own parents (the experience was later chronicled in her memoir Beware of Children, adapted into the comedy film No Kidding, in which two of the child actors were named “Eileen” and “Margaret”).
After leaving school, Eileen and her sister spent some time in Lady Margaret House, an establishment in Cambridge run by nuns, where students could take exams to further their education and apply for entrance to university. (A fellow student here was another Old Charterian, Trinidadian Jan Bain, who with the sisters – sometimes passing themselves off as The Supremes - would sometimes escape to London to go to the swinging parties laid on by Liberian friends.)
Eileen subsequently spent some time in Germany, where brother George was a medical student, and in the late ‘60s she became a member of Gray’s Inn in the late ‘60s, as did her sister, intending to study law and although Eileen eventually decided not to be a lawyer - leaving that profession for many other cousins to pursue – she did go a long way down that path. One of the rituals to be performed before being called to the bar was that members of the Inns of Court were required to eat an obligatory number of dinners in the main hall, and Eileen always recalled that one of those with whom she ate dinners was Maurice Bishop, who later became Grenada’s revolutionary Prime Minister. During this time she shared a solid friendship with another Ghanaian student in Swinging London called Nana Cato, and the two young women became flatmates.
To cover her tuition fees Eileen worked as a freelance broadcaster for the BBC’s African Service at Bush House, where other figures included legendary broadcaster Mike Eghan. It was during this time that she met and interviewed Stevie Wonder, who became a lifetime friend to her and her close family circle, loyally supportive to the end, and sending Eileen a loving message on her last day.
Eileen had an adventurous and entrepreneurial streak in her that led her to working in the airline business, through which she travelled often to the Caribbean, as a senior representative of BWIA, and to different parts of Africa.
After meeting Ibrahim Keita from Cote d’Ivoire they married on 7 July 1977.  She then moved to Cote d’Ivoire and continued her career in Abidjan where she was General Manager of American Airlines for West Africa, also establishing an office for AA in Ghana. Their son Jamil was born in London, at the Royal Free Hospital, and was the apple of her eye.
The changing Ivoirian political situation impacted badly on their lives, they abandoned what had once been a tranquil environment and ultimately made London their base.
Wherever she lived, Eileen interacted warmly and unforgettably with everyone, whatever their means or status. She was generous and selfless to a fault. One of the things she greatly enjoyed was visiting car-boot sales or markets including Portobello Road, becoming such a beloved regular that stall-holders – who all seemed to know her by name - would press goods upon her gratis, with her friends and family unfailingly ending up as the beneficiaries. A one-woman charity, she developed the habit of visiting eateries to rescue whatever unsold produce they might otherwise discard; then, getting up at the crack of dawn, she would deliver food packages to the homeless or other needy people who crossed her path.
​    She had a unique and mysterious combination of practicality and spirituality, knowing just what you needed without you saying anything, often before you yourself even knew it, and she would have found exactly the thing to solve your problem and make your life easier.
Eileen had enduring connections with people on every continent; truly, to her there were no strangers in the world, just friends she had not yet met. Some of those who considered her a good friend never in fact met her but had bonded with her online in some way or other.
​As well as her Ghana-born siblings, she maintained close and loving ties with her late brother Wallace and his family in the US (widow Rhona, her children Robert, Dawn, Kathryn, and the next generation, headed by great-niece Joanna, of whose newborn son Nate Eileen was able to see a WhatsApp photo).
Her blood relatives – the Busby, Christian, Keita kin - included cousins in the Caribbean (particularly Trinidad, Dominica, Bahamas and Barbados), as well as in Africa, North America, Britain and elsewhere in Europe. Those whom she chose as extended family include the Baden-Sempers and the Rosarios, with Maurice and Andrea doing everything possible to provide the wonderful support she needed in her last months. There was also a younger generation to whom Eileen was a surrogate mother, whether to Mai or Bébé or Séverine or Mory. Eileen’s devoted son Jamil, with his ever-supportive wife Pilar, were constantly by her side, and alongside Eileen’s husband Ibrahim, and other devoted friends and admirers who saw her through her final illness are Robert, Naomi, Desmond, Luke, Chris, Virgil, David, PJ, Ismail cousin Bernard Ribeiro and numerous other doctors nurses and careers at Royal Free, UCH Hospitals and the Marie Curie Hospice in Hampstead.
The sad news of her loss has also devastated many old friends (including Charles and Hilary and Victor) who did not know how unwell she was – Eileen was not one to complain and tried never to upset those she loved. She always had a positive outlook, optimistic that things in the end would turn out well. Now that she is at peace, we can be sure that she was right in that belief. When she left us on the evening of Sunday, 24 May 2020, Jamil was at her bedside holding her hand.

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Eileen Busby Keita Obituary | Keeper Memorials