Well known social activist, Bridget Cullerton, passes away
We report tonight the passing of well known personality, Bridget Cullerton, a woman that blazed many trails in the social and business sectors. Cullerton was born in Belize City in 1945 and was the eldest of ten children. She moved to the US in 1962, and tragedy struck shortly after when her mother and six siblings perished in a fire at their home. Cullerton spent thirty years abroad, holding various high level appointments including one as assistant Superintendent of schools in Washington State. She returned home in 1992 and worked with Belize Enterprise for Sustainable Technology for five years before she took up the post of C.E.O. of the Citrus Growers Association for the last twelve years of her life. Cullerton was diagnosed with cancer in 1994 and spent the years thereafter working to better treatment options in Belize. She passed away quietly at her home in Dangriga on Thursday night. News Five spoke via phone to Cullerton’s husband, Brian, who recounted her struggle and work to help others with the very ailment that ended her life.
Brian Cullerton, Husband of Deceased (via phone)
“Bridget was along with Juliet Soberanis and others and was one of the moves in the organization of the Belize Cancer Society. At the time her breast cancer was first diagnosed, there wasn’t a mammogram machine in the entire country and she had to go back to the states to find out. Since then people can determine here at an earlier time and with a better chance of remission and sometimes a cure. So she was very committed to the Cancer Society and was delighted that the Belize Cancer Center began here in Dangriga last year; the first opportunity for Belizeans to get chemo-therapy treatment here in the country.”
Delahnie Bain
“How have you and the family been coping so far?”
Brian Cullerton
“Well, it’s difficult but we knew it was coming. Bridget was prepared and she had a peaceful and painless last several weeks and it was a sudden decline last week that led to her death. So as difficult as it is to lose somebody who is that important to us and as a result of the many people she’s touched in the seventeen years she’s been back here in Belize, her impact goes far beyond what she did as a working businesswoman.”
The funeral service is set for Tuesday at two p.m. and will be held at Sacred Heart Church. Cullerton will be cremated as was her wish and her ashes will be returned to the sea in Dangriga where her fondest childhood memories were made. Bridget Garbutt Lambert Cullerton, dead at sixty-four.
