IT is only a select few who become legends in their own lifetime. Dame Lois Marie Browne Evans was one of them. She was a trail-blazer with a burning passion, a nationalist of international consequence. She had a contagious zest for life. And she had a life before she became ‘rich’ and famous and, we daresay, even after.

It is going to take a long time for Bermuda and her legions of genuine, as well as fair-weather friends both here and abroad, to get over the shock of her sudden passing on Tuesday, just three days before the grand, meticulously planned celebration on June 1, of her 80th birthday.

I used to boast at being able to introduce her on many occasions down through the years as my fellow-travelling friend; as one of the most courageous champions of the labour movement, even at one time as my fellow legislator.

She was a trifle younger than I, which enabled me to remind her to show some respect for her elders. We were at the Berkeley together. Often in jest, I was able to quicken her memory how, perhaps, we may have been able to change the course of history in Bermuda were it not for her fanatical interest in studying law that saved her from going over the edge of juvenile delinquency.

Dame Lois was a trail-blazer whose place in Bermuda’s history was secured many years ago, not just because she had the distinction of being Bermuda’s first female lawyer.

But rather because she had the guts, the courage of her convictions to dare to invade that male-dominated ‘closed shop’ called the Bermuda Bar (about which I have written in my book Freedom fighters, From Monk to Mazumbo).

If at times today we tend to think of the Bermuda Bar as stuffy, even with the vast number of females making up its ranks, and intimidating, imagine what it was like 40 years ago. All freedom lovers in Bermuda owe Dame Lois a debt of gratitude. She championed human rights, civil rights. She broke down barriers of racism, sexism and colonialism. Out of the goodness of her heart, she helped many a poor and disadvantaged person who knocked on her doors.

The Lois Browne Evans I knew and whose evolution I was privileged to closely monitor, was generous to a fault, a truly public-spirited woman. She was one of a number of politicians I could name who, as one historian put it, “served their fellows very well and themselves correspondingly ill”.

I quote that only in elaboration of my opening observation about her being “rich and famous”.M> answer to the question about what could be considered the most significant contribution of Dame Lois is simply this. That she widened considerably the crack in the bastion of that deeply-entrenched, well-financed, manipulative, all-powerful, male-dominated minority of mid-century oligarchs who were conceited in their belief they could dominate the greater majority of black and poor white of Bermuda for ever.They were male chauvinists who in the early days treated her with contempt. I observed it. Their unmistakable disposition was that a woman’s place was in the home, perhaps in the kitchen, certainly not in their hallowed halls of the second oldest parliament outside of Westminster. Worse for some of them, she was not only a woman, but an unmistakable black one.

However, Lois Browne Evans loved a fight, whether it was on the floor of the House of Assembly or in party caucus . . . because there were the chauvinists in caucus as well!

Many of her best in-house friends while not ‘MCPs’ (male chauvinist pigs as we used to hear back then), they were not ‘pussy-foots’ either. They were of the breed of Wilfred (Mose) Allen, and I need not go any further on that point.

It might seem trite for me to dwell on her high intelligence or even her intellectual depth. Throughout her career as the longest serving elected Member of the House, she was often the most articulate parliamentarian in the country. In fact, she could with ease take her place in any parliament anywhere.

After all, being the first of woman Parliamentary Leader of Her Majesty’s Official Opposition in the whole of the British Commonwealth had to mean something!

And with her expertise in constitutional matters, and being the country’s first elected Attorney General had to count for something out of the ordinary as well.

It was inevitable that being engaged in politics at her level and length of time, that she would garner many political friends and enemies. I am convinced that along the line she earned their respect, if not at all times, their loyalty. Dame Lois came across as a modest woman, with so much to be modest about. She was unpretentious, a role model for the newer breed, some of whom should beware of the slippery slopes of snobrocricy!

What I considered most admirable about Dame Lois was her finding time to be a devoted mother and wife, who unhesitatingly acknowledged publicly her “dear John Evans” with his Trinidadian roots.

Many awards were deservedly bestowed on Lois Browne Evans. They ranged from her earliest, in 1959, by the Socratic Literary Club for her public service, professional and cultural work, through to 40 years to that of Dame, the female version of a knighthood from the Queen.

She had declined such Queen’s Honours previously, but in 1999, she yielded to the r-rulings of her children.

The photos above show the portrait by Canadian artist Bernard Poulin of Dame Lois unveiled at the House of Assembly in February. Proudly looking on were her daughter Nadine and grandchildren Rodeyka Browne Evans, Kidada Robinson and Kenneth Browne Evans. In the background is former Premier Sr John Swan. Daughter Tina and son John Evans were abroad at the time of the unveiling.