Family
Ghanaba's parents were Susana Awula Abla Moore, a great beauty of her time, and Richard Mabuo Akwei, founder and first headmaster of Ghana National School, Accra. As a youngster Ghanaba was a boisterous free spirit who found little peace and comfort with the strict establishmentarian demeanour of his father. Richard Akwei, a disciplinarian of the middle-class gentry of Accra, was a renowned educationist and founder of the Akwei Memorial School in central Accra; also a sports administrator, he is credited with being the first Ghanaian Chief Executive of what was then the Central Organization of Sports (COS), now referred to as the Sports Council.
Ghanaba was married twice and had six children. His first son, Guy Warren Jr aka "Odinga Oginga", is an artist specialising in sculpting, painting and carving, who currently lives in New York City. His second child Glenn Gillespie Warren, also called "Ghanababa" (the son of Ghanaba), is a jazz drummer who featured on the album That Happy Feeling (Safari, 1979). He recorded Bomdigi (Safari, 2008), the last album featuring Ghanaba. Glenn was chosen by Ghanaba himself to carry on his work, which was formally marked when Ghanaba handed Glenn his drumsticks. Ghanaba's third son, Gamal Abdel Nasser Warren, aka The President, is a political science student who was named after president Nasser of Egypt, with the permission and blessing of the great man himself given in a letter written to Ghanaba. His fourth son Gamaliel Joseph Warren, who also inherited his father’s musical talent as a jazz drummer, is currently based in Gary, Indiana.
In 1976, Ghanaba met and married Mrs Felicia Ghanaba, a Togolese living in Ghana. She bore Ghanaba a much longed for daughter whom they named Medie ("mine"); now married, she is known as Medie Ghanaba Lemay. In 1982 the couple had a second daughter named Gye Nyame Hosanna Ghanaba. At home, Ghanaba was a kind husband and loving father, a responsible man who took great care of his family. He was man of honour who stood strongly by whatever he believed in. He taught his children to always have patience and to love unconditionally.
Read more about this topic: Guy Warren
Famous quotes containing the word family:
“No wealth can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and independence which are the capital in this profession. It comes only by the grace of God. It requires a direct dispensation from Heaven to become a walker. You must be born into the family of the Walkers. Ambulator nascitur, non fit.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Like many another romance, the romance of the family turns sour when the money runs out. If we really cared about families, we would not let “born again” patriarchs send up moral abstractions as a smokescreen for the scandal of American family economics.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)
“A poem is like a person. Though it has a family tree, it is important not because of its ancestors but because of its individuality. The poem, like any human being, is something more than its most complete analysis. Like any human being, it gives a sense of unified individuality which no summary of its qualities can reproduce; and at the same time a sense of variety which is beyond satisfactory final analysis.”
—Donald Stauffer (b. 1930)