Bernel McKenzie, age seventy, of Newburgh, New York, died at St.
Luke’s Cornwall Hospital on April 3, 2024.
He was born on September 12, 1953 in Clarendon, Jamaica to the late
Claudius McKenzie and the late Marie Lue Thomas.
Bernel attended Gimme-Me-Bit Primary School, then Kempshill
Secondary School in Clarendon.
He worked at the New Yarmouth Sugar Estate, prior to leaving
Jamaica in the early nineteen eighties on the Farm Work Program to
Florida.
Bernel then immigrated to Newburgh, New York, where he spent the
remainder of his life. There, he was married to the late Mary Burnett,
and assisted in raising her last child, Tiffany Maurice, who has five
children and four grand-children.
He is survived by four children - Bernard, Annmarie, Susan,
Kaydian, eighteen grand-children, and six great-grandchildren,
twenty-five nieces and nephews, and a host of other relatives and
friends. He was predeceased by his fifth child - Dale in 2020. Bernel
worked as a construction worker; an auto mechanic; and custodian
for the Newburgh City School district, from which he retired in 2022.
His favorite pass time and hobbies included spending time by
himself, and with his friends playing dominoes and other activities.
Bernel will forever be in our hearts.
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