Gloria Sawyer Chiodo

Gloria was interviewed by Aiva Lowe, Kamille McCLellan and Mia Pinder.  Aiva Lowe’s mom, Stacy, as a kid, used to summer in Gloria’s current home - “On the Rocks”.  This home was formerly owned by Pa John Pinder, Aiva’s great grandfather.  Kamille McClellan’s grammy, Denise McIntosh, was Gloria’s mom’s helper in her cafe, The Turtle Crawl Cafe that is now the Turtle Crawl Ice Cream Shop.  Mia, Aiva and Kamille all have family relations through second cousins many times removed!

Gloria Sawyer Chiodo was born on Green Turtle Cay in 1947 to Mizpah and Earnest Sawyer.  Mizpah was born in Marsh Harbor, the oldest of 7 children. Ernest Sawyer was born and raised on GTC and was one of 12 siblings. Gloria was the 10th child of 11 siblings;  Roswell (Ross), Sylvan (Sid), Elsie, Sheila, George (Chris), Richard (Carroll), Windsor (Tom), Sylvia, Jeremiah (Jerry), Gloria and Joy. 

Her family home is located next to the Turtle Crawl Ice cream store.  Her home consisted of a family room and bedroom on the first floor for her parents and a “children’s” loft for all 11 kids on the second floor. The kitchen was originally separated from the main house to limit fire hazards. Like all homes on the island in the 40s and early 50s her home had no electric, running water or indoor plumbing.

Gloria grew up in the town of New Plymouth where many of the roads were not paved.  There were no cars and transportation to anywhere required a boat ride or catching passage on the mail boat. Gloria experienced the “paving” of New Plymouth’s road with cement during her childhood. The neighborhood kids made extra pocket change breaking up rocks to add to the cement paving.  

As a child Gloria made her own entertainment  fishing, swimming, playing ball, kick the can, and flying kites with her siblings and friends.  Ella Sawyer (Pinder), great grandmother of Mia Lowe, was among her many friends, along with Linda and Carolyn Cash, Maxine Roberts, Alma Lowe, Martha Lowe, Laura Hodgkins, Linda Key and Kathleen MacDonald, the daughter of the Scotsman who was commissioner here for a few years.

She attended the Green Turtle Cay All Age School (now the Amy Roberts Primary School) until graduation at the age of 14 by passing the Bahamas Junior Certificate (BJC exam). At that time the school was assigned only 1 qualified teacher to teach all the students - ages 5 to 14 years old. Amy Roberts was her Kindergarten/First grade teacher.  The Headmaster, Mr. Jack Ford, was an Englishman. There were no textbooks.  Students copied lessons from the blackboard in order to write their daily lessons. Gloria’s favorite subject was reading. When Gloria turned 12 years old she was assigned to teach the 5th grade class. This was a common practice at the time to capitalize on selected older students to assist the Headmaster. This experience showed Gloria the path to becoming a teacher was not in her future.

The town had a library located next door to the Post Office which was only open on Saturday afternoons. The mail boat would bring in magazines and newspapers from England to be shared at the library. Since Gloria’s passion was literature she was a frequent visitor to the library.     

Her father, with the assistance of her two older brothers, Ross & Sid started their own crawfish exporting business to Florida from late fall to early spring. They purchased two ships, the Elutherian Adventurer and  the Joy G.  Gloria seldom helped her dad on his boats - “they were too smelly!” - instead assisting her mom at her Turtle Crawl grocery store. Her dad regularly returned from his trips with treats for his kids along with supplies for her mom’s grocery store. 

After graduation from the Green Turtle Cay All Age School -now The Amy Roberts School, Gloria signed up for a high school correspondence course out of England in Math, History, and English Literature. The weekly mail boat would deliver her assignment which she would  complete and then return by the same mail boat journey. It took 6 weeks for her correspondence material to be delivered, 6 weeks to ship back to England upon completion and 6 more weeks to have her fate decided on passing. Persistence won out and Gloria graduated from the correspondence course.

Upon graduation she was selected to be the GTC Postmistress. Her job duties included postage sales and mail processing. The mail boat was always an eagerly anticipated occasion. Families would gather in front of the post office in hopes of receiving news. As Postmistress, Gloria was also responsible for recording all births and deaths on the island in addition to posting and securing funds in the Post Office Savings bank.  

Gloria held the position of Postmistress for 2 years until she accepted a job with the First National City Trust in Nassau as a receptionist. Her next job was working as a bookkeeper for a shipping company that shipped freight from Florida to Nassau and back, and then as a bookkeeping clerk at Price Waterhouse and Co. 

It was a hair salon appointment that introduced her to her husband, David Chiodo.  David was originally from Florida but had come to Nassau with his mom when she was divorcing his dad.  His mom and her husband had honeymooned in Nassau.  His mom saw an opportunity to open up a floral business, Nassau Florist. David assisted with the business along with helping out in his mom’s boyfriend’s Emerald Beach Beauty Salon and Barber Shop. David soon realized the beauty salon was the more lucrative of the two businesses - barber versus stylist - and chose “salon stylist" for his profession. To become a stylist would require education and certification. His dad supported his pursuit and sent him to NYC for training. While walking the streets of NYC wearing a shirt with the Nassau logo he met Alton Lowe, Gloria’s cousin. Alton and David discussed their love for Nassau resulting in Alton singing the praises of his cousin, Gloria and encouraged David to look her up on his return to Nassau.

Fate sealed the deal when Gloria booked a hair appointment at the salon and David introduced himself to her. Though both had other romantic interests at the time, true love won out! They married in Nassau in November 1972. 

When the Bahamas finalized their Declaration of Independence it created challenges for David’s hair salon work permit.  David was not a citizen of the Bahamas.  His marriage to Gloria did not grant him citizenship rights. He would have to apply for a new work permit. After much discussion the young couple decided it was time to move on to Boca Raton, Florida to begin their family and for David to open the Crescendo Beauty Salon.

As a new young family to the states, Gloria discovered it was her family members who had been responsible for creating the food for the table.  Her mom loved to cook and was known for her dishes throughout GTC. Now Gloria had to figure out how to cook and found help with Julia Childs daily cooking shows. Gloria would watch the show, record the recipe and then immediately shop for the ingredients for the night’s dinner!  One of her favorite foods to cook is pasta. Gloria continued her career working in bookkeeping and administration and qualified in real estate sales and in securities sales, but became a stay at home mom with her children until they became teenagers. She later became the Administrator of a Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, and remained in that job until she retired.

She and David have two children, Nicole (Nicky), a computer engineer and Brooke, a Physician's Assistant who both live in Florida. They have two grandsons by Nicole, Quinn, a student at FAU and Patrick, a student at American Heritage High School. 

Below is a favorite recipe from Gloria’s recipe collection.

Cold Oven Pound Cake

Bake at 350 for 50 minutes to 1 hour

3 cups cake flour

3 cups sugar

3/4 lb butter

5 lg eggs

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup milk

Pinch salt

2 tsp vanilla

Cream softened butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix flour, salt and baking powder together in a separate bowl and slowly add to the batter, alternating flour and milk. Add vanilla and mix well. 

Prepare two loaf pans or a large Bundt pan by buttering and dusting with flour well. Pour batter into pan and smooth top. Place into cold oven and set temperature to 350. Bake until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Let cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan. 

Flavorings may be changed up for this cake, substituting rum extract, or lemon zest and extract for the vanilla. This cake keeps well.