Zelma Inez Edgell, known to family, friends, colleagues and her readers as Zee, has died at the age of 80. She passed away on December 20, 2020 in her St. Louis home after a battle with cancer.
Born in Belize City, British Honduras (now Belize) in 1940, Zee was the daughter of the late Clive Tucker and Veronica Tucker (nee Walker). She was married to the late Alvin “Al” Edgell for 52 years. Together they raised two children: journalist Holly Edgell and physician Randall “Randy” Edgell. Through Randall and his wife, Emily Shavers Edgell, the couple had three grandchildren: Isaac, 17; Sophia, 16; and Simon, 12.
She is survived by her children and grandchildren as well as siblings Barry Tucker, Laura Tucker-Longsworth, Martha Tucker-Eiley, Monica Tucker and Ava Tucker. Three brothers, Clive Tucker Jr., Alexander “Zandy” Tucker and Lenton Tucker, are deceased.
Zee authored four novels and five short stories set in Belize, the only Belizean writer of fiction to do so. Her first book, Beka Lamb (Heineman, 1982), is beloved in Belize and throughout the Caribbean. It has been part of school and examination curricula in the region and the subject of scholarly research in the region and around the world since its publication.
Zee was a determined young woman, eager to find her place in the world as a journalist. Winning an essay contest as a high school freshman had sparked her love of the written word. After graduating in 1959, she saved the money she earned from part-time jobs and convinced her parents to match what she accumulated so that she could travel to Kingston, Jamaica to take up a newspaper traineeship at the “The Daily Gleaner.”
Her training program complete, Zee traveled to London, England to study journalism at the Regent Street Polytechnic, now the University of Westminster.
Returning to Belize in the mid-1960s, Zee met Alvin “Al” Edgell, who would become her husband, when they faced off in a game of mixed doubles badminton.
Zee wrote many of her works as she traveled the world with Al and their children. Al’s work for non-governmental development organizations took the family to Nigeria, the United Kingdom, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Somalia.
In the mid-1990s Zee joined the English faculty at Kent State University. She would retire from Kent in 2008 as a tenured full professor.
Zee received an honorary doctorate in literature from the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill, Barbados in 2009. She holds a Master of Liberal Studies degree from Kent State University.
In 2007, Zee received an MBE from Queen Elizabeth II, for her services to literature and the community. Among those services to Belize was her founding of the “The Reporter” newspaper in 1967. In addition, she served as director of the Women’s Bureau (later the Women’s Department) in the 1980s. Later, she was a lecturer at the University College of Belize (now the University of Belize).
Over the decades, Zee took time to visit schools around Belize to meet with young people studying her work and read to them from her books. Her last such activity took place in 2016, with a visit to E.P. Yorke High School High School in Belize City.
After retiring from Kent State University, Zee and Al Edgell moved to St. Louis, Missouri where they lived within walking distance of their children and grandchildren.
Preparations for services in St. Louis and Belize City are underway. Dates have yet to be announced.
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