By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 7, 2019 — I initially started to write a caption to share a photograph posted by Isabell Fox-Rolle on her Facebook page. However, she subsequently posted a series of photographs of with her husband, Lawrence “Law” Rolle, their sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren, and It suddenly dawned on me that those photographs were clear evidence of a love story that most certainly should be documented in a book and subsequently developed into a movie.
So, I decided to write extended comments on the love affair between these two wonderful individuals, whose love affair blossomed when they were both working at the Freeport News in Grand Bahama, and it was quite obvious to their co-workers that their office romance was destined to be a life-time commitment.
Isabell, or Issie as I have always referred to her, and Lawrence “Law” Rolle were already married when I met them for the first time during my initial tenure as Editor or the Freeport News from 1993–1994. They were still employed at the Freeport News when I returned as Editor in 1996. Issie was in charge of accounts at the Accounts Department and Law, who worked in the Production Department, also learned to master all of the machines in the Commercial Printing Department, which at the time was a big money-earner for the Freeport News.
Law is from Bimini and I got to know many members of the Rolle family very well during my many visits to Bimini in the 1960s when I was President of the Bahamas Baseball Association (BBA) and frequently took baseball teams to Bimini to compete at Bayfront Park against the very talented baseball teams Bimini produced back then.
I don’t recall ever seeing Law play baseball, but he had brother, Oriel Rolle, who was one of the best baseball players in the country back in the 1960s and many baseball fans considered him and Lorenzo “Doney” Lockhart, who played for the Winnie Ann Reds in the 1960s and successive top-rated teams in Nassau over the years, to be the two best baseball hitters in BBA history.
The consensus was virtually unanimous among baseball aficionados that both Oriel Rolle and Lorenzo Lockhart had the potential to become successful Major League baseball players, but both declined numerous opportunities to sign professional baseball contracts, and more likely than not for the very same reason: the struggle to survive in the rigorous and highly competitive developmental regimes in the Minor Leagues while trying to make it to the Major Leagues was in their view too great a price to pay for a young player with a wife.
Beyond the sensible and mature judgement both Oriel Rolle and Lorenzo Lockhart made despite an avalanche of pressure from friends – and probably some family members – to become professional baseball players, there is no disputing the fact that both were young men of sterling character, and their decision to put success as a husband and father above the possibilities of making a lot of money as a Major League baseball player strongly supports this conclusion.
Lawrence “Law” Rolle seemed to have inherited many of the same personal attributes as his brother Oriel Rolle. At the Freeport News, he developed a reputation as having a very strong work ethic and of being very proficient in doing the tasks he undertook. As the woman responsible for preparing the “weekly pay packets” and subsequently paychecks, more likely than not these were some of the attributes that won the heart of Isabell Fox.
They have been married 44 years and “have three birth sons and a son we raised who lives in Nassau,” Issie informed me, in response to a message I sent to her inbox.
“We relocated to the United States in 2003, and reside in a small town right outside of Raleigh, North Carolina. Angier is the name of the town, 20 minutes from Raleigh,” Issie notes. “We have four grands: one boy, Tyree, who will be 11 this year; three granddaughters, Raeaja, 18, Rhimah, 10, and Ramia, 4.”
