Longtime St. John resident Beverly Biziewski admits she says what’s on her mind.
“I confess I have a very big mouth,” she said, sitting still for an interview at the island’s Catherineberg sugar mill.
She said she says what everyone else thinks but lacks the – she couldn’t come up with quite the right word, but courage covers it – to say.
Yes, Biziewski is outspoken and asks personal questions others wouldn’t dare, but she’s got a big heart and gives back in many ways to the St. John community.
She’s president of St. John’s chapter of AARP of the Virgin Islands but has her fingers in many pies. They include the St. John Historical Society, the Audubon Society of the Virgin Islands, St. John Singers, and Nazareth Lutheran Church.
Long past the age of retirement – she won’t say how many – she still cleans houses for a villa management company to augment her funds. It was a job she first took to build her bank account so she could buy land and build her house.
Biziewski did retire from her job as a licensed practical nurse at Myrah Keating Smith Community Health Center in 1995, but with the cleaning jobs and all her activities, she keeps plenty busy.
Born in Springfield, Mass., she married young. Her husband, Victor Biziewski, was in the U.S. Air Force, and the couple lived in California and then Florida when the military moved them around.
After getting her LPN license in Panama City, Fla., she worked for a country doctor in Nicomas, Fla., a job where she learned a lot.
“He taught me how to do things that weren’t in the book,” she said, adding that the practice occasionally included operating on dogs and goats.
Two children – Victor Jr. lives in Florida and Patricia is in Georgia – later, she got an itch, divorced her husband and moved to St. John with a friend who was headed this way.
She immediately found a home, and soon got a job working as an LPN at the Queen Louise Home on St. Thomas.
When a job opened up at the Health Department’s Morris deCastro Clinic in Cruz Bay, she snapped it up. She moved on to Myrah Keating Smith Community Health Center when the facility opened in the early 1980s, working nights on call in the emergency room.
“They ring you up at night from the police,” she said, adding that she loved the job.
Those early years on St. John were a round of parties for Biziewski. She said she had her 20s while in her 40s, and spent nights dancing at legendary places like the Inn, the Out, the Bamboo Inn, Daniels, and Fred’s. And there were the Fish Fries at Pond Mouth, regular events where everyone danced so long and enthusiastically, they wore out their shoes.
Still a little wistful, she said there was no place to dance on Tuesdays but she was out every other night.
After 10 years of St. John’s non-stop single life, she reconnected with her husband. After a couple of years, the two remarried. He lived on St. John until he died in 1995.
Biziewski has no plans to leave. Noting that her mother lived until she was 103, she said she hopes to keep busy with her friends and activities for many more years to come.
She doesn’t have much free time, but when she does she stays in touch with her children, four grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, and “two more on the way.”
Friends are what make St. John special for Biziewski. She likes it that St. John residents are a diverse bunch, with all ages gathering for fun and for sadder events like the recent memorial service for a deceased friend.
“I feel very comfortable here. It’s wonderful to go back to the state and buy cheap stuff and drag it home, but I hope to die here,” she said.
