Alfred Leevy, former Principal of the Dominica Grammar School, passes on

On November 15, 2023, Alfred Leevy died at the former Princess Margaret Hospital. He was eighty-three years old. Though born in Montserrat of a Dominican mother, Mr. Leevy spent most of his life on Dominica and is considered the first Dominican to become principal of the Dominica Grammar School (DGS).

Early Years

Alfred Cecil Leevy was born in Montserrat on the 16th of October 1940. His father, Ira Alfred Leevy, was a Kittitian police officer, and his mother was Dorema Dominique of Soufriere. At the age of four, he travelled with his family to Dominica and was enrolled at the Soufriere Government Primary School.

He attended the Dominica Grammar School from 1954 to 1960, where he obtained the Cambridge School Certificate, as well as the Cambridge Higher School Certificate.

He lived at the home of Mr. and Mrs. W.O.M. Pond during those years and saw in Mr. Pond a father figure. It must be noted Wilfred Pond was a scholar and poet in his own right and wrote the words to Dominica’s national anthem “Isle of Beauty.”

Leevy once described Pond’s influence in a poem:

There’s behind me a long, long hand

Pushing me onward into the future

This hand belongs to a good old man

It is the hand of Uncle Wil

From 1960 to 1965, Leevy taught at the Grammar school, and in September 1965, he left Dominica for India to pursue further studies, having obtained a Commonwealth scholarship. He graduated from the University of Deli in 1968 with an Honours degree in geography.

In July 1969, Alfred Leevy married Dorothy Thomas, who had recently returned from studies at the University of Toronto where she had obtained a BA in English Literature. The couple had four children: Kim, Joffrey, Tara, and Palesa. Leevy had an older son, McPherson, who was very attentive to him during his illness.

Headmaster at the DGS

Upon his return to Dominica, Leevy began his teaching career at his Alma Mater, the DGS, as a geography teacher. During the period of the 1970s, ideas on independence and Pan-Africanist and indigenous consciousness soared at the Dominica Grammar and the St. Mary’s Academy. At both of these schools, there were calls for more local content to
the school curriculum and more opportunities for locals to administer those institutions.

Such agitation in the cause of self-determination led to the departure of the Christian Brothers to Iona College USA from the St. Mary’s Academy. That occasion was precipitated by the famous SMA students’ Black Power walk-out and demonstration of 1971. Voices for change towards local control were also heard at the DGS. At that time the DGS was led by a British physics teacher, JK Gough. It must be noted that the overwhelming majority of DGS headmasters or principals since the school’s founding in 1893 had been British men. That is, until after the World War II when St. Lucian-born McGill University chemistry/botany graduate Victor A. A. Archer became the headmaster.

In 1974 the DGS British Headmaster, Gough, was re-assigned to organize the new Clifton Dupigny Technical College at Stock Farm (now the Dominica State College). At that time, Mr. Leevy, his former deputy, was appointed as headmaster. The ascension to leadership at the DGS in a turbulent time was a test Mr. Leevy met with courage and grace. He is fondly remembered as a distinguished educator and the first local to lead the DGS who managed the school with an even hand.

Life after the DGS

Mr. Leevy pursued postgraduate studies in Public Administration at Manchester University in England, and at West Virginia University in the US. In 1994, he obtained a Master of Arts degree from Syracuse University. He worked in various capacities in the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Legal Affairs, and when he retired in 2000, he had been the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Community Development.

Throughout his adult life, he saw himself as an Evangelist, and acted accordingly. He was very involved in the life of his church, was an Elder as well as a Sunday school teacher. He also served on boards of various church and community organizations. Dear to his heart were, the Dominica Association of Persons with Disabilities; The Christian Union Primary School, of which he was a founding member; and his Gideon Ministry.

He was president of the Dominica Camp of Gideons International, and he was always happy and excited when he left the house to distribute Bibles to schools and institutions. For several years, his home served as the meeting place for the monthly meetings of the Gideons and provided storage space for the Bibles.

Writing was his main hobby, and he contributed several articles to the newspapers. He published a book of poetry, The Mountains Sing, as well as four other books in which he reflected on life and expressed his deep faith and trust in God. He was bothered by what he described in his poems, as society’s ”ubiquitous Godlessness and growing worship of man by man.”

In another poem, he described himself as “ united to a powerful force by a spiritual cord, not visible to physical eyes.”  He emphasized his mission: “I’ll follow this cord on breathing my last (from The Mountains Sing)”.

In his poem, ‘Things to be Righted’, he lamented, “ The wheels of materialism rotate: With rasping, grinding cacophony. Drowning the voice of peace and love”

Mr. Leevy’s wife related that he showed signs of mental decline after the stress associated with Hurricane Maria in 2017. In spite of the dementia, Leevy’s faith in God was unwavering, his hands were often clasped in prayer, so that, often, when his Nurse Julie Frampton, a neighbor, came to check on him, or his wife would attempt to feed him, he would not hesitate to tell them, “Please don’t disturb me, I’m praying.”

According to his dutiful and loving wife Dorothy Leevy:”Every morning, I would pray for him, while I fed him breakfast, the Daily Reflections sent to my phone by Noeliva Leblanc. I was never sure how much he heard, as he kept his eyes closed. The Reflections begin with the sound of church bells. However, one morning, I did not receive them at the usual time, and I began feeding him. He stopped eating and asked, “No Church today?””

The Passing

On October 29, 2023, he was admitted to the hospital with a chest infection, after he had been examined by his cousin, Vivian Moise, and he breathed his last on November 15.

Mr. Leevy leaves to mourn his loss, his wife, Dorothy; five children- McPherson, Kim, Joffrey, Tara, and Palesa, along with a host of other family members, friends, and well-wishers.

A Legacy of Public Service

Alfred Leevy was of that generation of teachers dedicated to service in the public interest. Mr. Leevy was kind, soft-spoken and shared his knowledge generously with the DGS students he mentored. He never exhibited arrogance and was known to spare the rod in those days when corporal punishment was the rule of the day. He was also a pioneer in studying in India and may well have been the first Dominican to graduate from an Indian university. It is of note that Mr. Leevy’s widow Dorothy Leevy (nee Thomas) is a legendary educator in her own right. The Leevy family is a true family of trailblazers, and history records Dorothy Leevy as the first Dominican-born principal at the Convent High School. Prior, the Convent was led by Belgian nuns.

In a 2023 interview, Mrs. Leevy spoke about growing up on Dominica, her education at home and abroad, her family life, and her service in nation-building via her leadership in educating a generation.

See here – Dorothy Leevy -Educator to a Generation of Dominican Students

The funeral service of Mr. Leevy can be viewed here: (41) Celebrating the life of 83-Year-old Cecil Leevy of St. Aroment

I am among the DGS students who benefited from Mr. Leevy’s leadership and tutoring. To that end, on behalf of our DGS contingent of that time and those at the Sixth Form College that Mr. Leevy also taught, we extend our sincere condolences to his beloved wife, family, and friends.

While Alfred Leevy has ascended to the warm embrace of the eternal heavenly host, we shall remember his noble contributions to our nation in education.