“It was not my family that did that.”
These were the words of 30-year-old Jocelyn Abidh-Waugh, granddaughter of trade unionist Adrian Cola Rienzi, as she yesterday sought to clear the air on the sale of this country’s highest award that was bestowed on her grandfather.
The medal was put up for sale on eBay this week, prompting a public outcry, including from President Anthony Carmona. However, the ANSA McAL Group was able to secure the medal with a US$25,000 bid and will soon bring the medal back home for placement in the National Museum.
Yesterday, Abidh-Waugh said whoever was responsible for selling the award made a “selfish,” “horrible” and “evil” move and that her immediate family was shocked and angry.
“Why would anyone want to do something like that? I’d really like to get a reason out of the person who sold it,” Abidh-Waugh said.
Rienzi was posthumously awarded the Order of the Republic of T&T in 2012 for his contribution to the trade union movement. His son, Robert Waugh, visited Trinidad and accepted the award. But when Robert died in May 2013, the award was left in the possession of his wife, Cori. They married in Mexico in November 2011.
Efforts to contact Cori have been unsuccessful.
In an interview with the T&T Guardian yesterday from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, however, Abidh-Waugh said she and her uncles Donald and Tony were infuriated when they saw the medal on sale on eBay earlier this week.
Abidh-Waugh said “Adrian” had two sons—Tony and Donald—with Stella Abidh out of wedlock. Stella, she said, was the first female Indo-Canadian doctor in Trinidad.
Not wanting anyone to link her sons to Rienzi, she said Stella gave them her surname and randomly chose Waugh.
According to Abidh-Waugh, Stella took her sons to Toronto and paid someone to raise them while she worked in Trinidad.
Of her deceased grandfather, she said, “He’s a famous guy. I am proud to know that he got a highway named after him and he really took initiative and made things happen. I am extremely proud and wish I got to meet him.”
She said she had no clue when the medal was posted up on eBay for sale, but after one relative found out it spread throughout the family like wildfire.
“We were all shocked and never thought that someone would sell it. And moreso sell it behind our backs,” she said.
She said she and her cousin initially wanted to plan a trip to Trinidad to donate the medal to a museum, but now it was just “really sad”. They wanted to ensure it was in a safe place and “definitely not on eBay”, she added.
The Abidh-Waugh family, she said, had tried to contact the coin dealer who put it up for sale on eBay but were unsuccessful in gathering information.
Asked why she decided to come forward, Abidh-Waugh said, “It was not my family that did that at all. It was someone else.
“I wanted to clear the air and say we had no idea this was happening.”