Berkel Family Website

Elme Elenor Berkel was born the third child to Octavia Gumbs and Sheffield Spanner on April 7, 1940 on the island of Aruba in the Netherland Antilles.  She was later adopted by her stepfather Oswald Sprott, and lived on the island of St. Eustatius to adulthood.  She accepted the Seventh Day Adventist message as a teenager and remained an active member throughout her life.

On April 25, 1960 Elme Sprott married a childhood neighbor, Samuel Augustus Berkel, in Curaçao.  After bearing two children there, the family immigrated to the United States in 1965.  Three more children were added to their union.  Elme served for many years as a Sabbath School teacher in Mount Vernon SDA Church in Mount Vernon, New York.  She retired from thirty one years of service as a certified nursing assistant at Our Lady of Mercy Hospital in the Bronx.

Elme was an avid reader, a stylish dresser, a quick witted story teller and a great cook. She was a faithful wife, hard working mother and devoted to living life to the fullest.  She will be greatly missed by all and is lovingly remembered for “doing things her way”.

She retired in order to enjoy her dream of living out her final days gardening at a home of her own on the Jib in Statia.  Having exceeded three score and ten, the age of promise, she gave up her earthly body at 71 years and some day will be raised incorruptible. “You have fought a good fight, in heaven there awaits you a crown”.

Elme was preceded in death by her parents, her eldest sister, Rosa Kaspers, and her brother, Sheffield Gumbs.  She leaves to cherish her memories: her husband of fifty years of marriage– Samuel Berkel; her children – Gerard Berkel, Jacqueline Walker (Steven), Shirlene Berkel, Charlise Berkel, and Tyrone Berkel; her grandchildren – Shelson Hughes, Shernique Hughes, and Armand Vasquez; her sisters – Leonora Lake and Clemence De Mey; and a host of nieces, nephews, cousins, in-laws, church family and friends.