Honorific-Prefix: | Dame |
Elmira Minita Gordon | |
Order: | 1st |
Office: | Governor-General of Belize |
Term Start: | 21 September 1981 |
Term End: | 17 November 1993 |
Predecessor: | Position established |
Successor: | Colville Young |
Birth Date: | 30 December 1930 |
Birth Place: | Belize City, British Honduras (now Belize) |
Nationality: | Belizean |
Death Place: | Inglewood, California, US |
Dame Elmira Minita Gordon (30 December 1930 – 1 January 2021) was a Belizean educator, psychologist and politician; she served as the first governor general of Belize from its independence in 1981 until 1993. She was the first Belizean to receive a doctorate in psychology. She is one of the few "double dames", having received damehoods in two separate orders: the Order of St Michael and St George and the Royal Victorian Order.
She was the first woman to serve as governor-general in the history of the Commonwealth.[1] [2] [3]
Elmira Minita Gordon was born 30 December 1930 in Belize City, British Honduras. Her parents, Frederick Gordon and May Dakers,[4] had immigrated from Jamaica to Lucky Strike, Belize in the 1920s.[5] Gordon had five siblings: Lincoln Coyi, Dorinda Henderson, Kelorah Franklin, Rolston Coyi, and Robert Reyes. She grew up in Belize City, attending St. John's Girls' School and St. Mary's Primary. Gordon was a member of the Girl Guides from 1946.[6] Years later, in 1970 Gordon became the District Commissioner of the Girl Guides for the Belize district.
Gordon continued her education at St. George's Teachers' College. She also took a correspondence course from the College of Preceptors, Oxford, England.
After graduation, she began teaching at an Anglican school. She also served as a missionary throughout Belize between 1946 and 1958. From 1959 to 1969, she was a lecturer at the Belize Teachers' Training College.[7] From 1969 to 1981, she served as a Government Education Officer.
Gordon graduated from the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada with a B.Ed. (1967)[8] and an M.Ed. (1969) specialising in educational psychology.[9] [10] She completed postgraduate studies at the University of Nottingham and University of Birmingham in England.[6] Between 1977 and 1980, when Gordon was in Canada, she served on the Educational Psychology Programme Planning Committee and was a member of the Toronto Leather Craft Club. She graduated with a PhD in applied psychology from the University of Toronto in 1980,[11] becoming the first trained Belizean psychologist.
She returned to Belize after graduating. In 1981 Gordon was appointed as Governor General of Belize.[12] She succeeded James P. I. Hennessy, the last Governor of Belize. She became the first Governor-General of Belize upon Belize gaining independence that year.
Gordon became a justice of the peace in 1974[6] and a senior Justice of the Peace in 1987. Gordon received a lifetime membership of the British Red Cross in 1975,[6] and in the Belizean Red Cross in 1981. In addition to her public works, Gordon was a master leather crafts artisan, having won numerous prizes for her works.
Gordon stepped down as Governor-General in 1993, and was succeeded by Sir Colville Young.[13] In later years, poor health prompted her to move to the United States in 2016 to live with her sister, Kelorah Franklin. She died on 1 January 2021, in Inglewood, Los Angeles County, California, two days after her 90th birthday.[14]