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Dame Lois-Marie Browne-Evans has passed away.

I knew her as aunt Lois-Marie; she was Godmother to my baby sister, Sylvia. She and my mother Mary were best of friends having met as teachers at Elliot School.

In that era, children were schooled to refer to adult family friends as Aunt or Uncle. My parents were among those who encouraged her to pursue her dreams of becoming a lawyer, despite what was then a tremendous triple handicap she bore of being black, dark-skinned black at that, and of being a woman.

Dame Lois was a formidable debater. She had a firm grasp of language, a quick and fertile mind, the gift of being a good storyteller, and a security of self that let her assume ownership of whatever podium, real or imagined, she stood before.

Dame Lois had a love-hate relationship with things British. She railed against colonialism and fought endlessly to turn Bermuda's mindset toward independence.

At the same time she valued and trusted British law and championed Westminster's Parliamentary Democracy. Under her leadership, the PLP eschewed every trapping of Colonialism, including the acceptance of Queen's Honours. When the PLP came to power, she agreed to accept the female version of a Knighthood - she had, after all, earned it.

Dame Lois was a country girl. She had the broadest of traditional Bermudian accents and was not given much to fashion. She relished a verbal battle and had a sauciness about her that epitomized black matriarchy in our community.

It is difficult to imagine the magnitude of her accomplishments. At a time when racism and sexism were societal norms, she was leader of the Progressive Labour Party, the Island's first political party and now the Government. She imposed her stamp onto Bermuda's legal "fraternity" having become the Island's first female barrister and first female Attorney General.

Dame Lois embodied terms most of us know only as words. She was selfless, fearless, and truthful; she had a strong sense of justice, of pride and of self-respect.

So much of Rudyard Kipling's poem "If" describes her fortitude, perhaps these lines do so best:

"If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch; ..."

Dame Lois has carved her name into the hearts and minds of every person in Bermuda who entered the fields of politics or law or justice for the past four decades. She won't be forgotten.[[In-content Ad]]

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