Joan was one of the first kids in Sunshine League home

Joan Masters was born in Bermuda on March 14, 1930.

Her father was a black Bermudian, while her mother was a white Scottish woman, who had come to the island to work.

Her father, Heber Mattis, died when Joan was just two years old, and she ended up being one of the first children, along with her twin brother and older sister, to be placed in the Sunshine League home when it opened.

Her mother, Barbara Mackay, worked in the hospitality industry at the Bermudiana Hotel and had to live on site for work so there was no space for the children to live with her.

But she would see her children at weekends. In her teens, Joan moved through a series of foster homes before settling with her brother and sister at a property her mother owned in Cobb’s Hill in Warwick.

According to her son Terrance Masters: “This was the first real stability mother had had in her life.

“The three children would look after the house in the week, and then my grandmother would come home at the weekends.

“It was a hard upbringing for her being moved from pillar to post.

“Sometimes she was not treated very well by the people around her – but she never really spoke much about that.

“But the three of them – her and her siblings – formed a team and they got through it.”

Joan went on to marry Cecil Masters at the age of 19 in 1950 in Warwick and the couple had four sons; Harold, David, Terrance and George.