In the early morning hours of Tuesday, June 30, 1998, Isabella McIntosh-Laroda (nee Cornish) died at Princess Margaret Hospital “as quietly and unobtrusively as she had lived her life.” Her daughter Genevieve was at her bedside. Her son—Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham—was 800 miles away in St. Lucia, representing the Bahamas at a CARICOM summit.
Courtesy of the obituary collection of the Late Rt. Hon. Bradley B. Roberts
Even in death, “Dama” did not disrupt her son’s duty to the nation. She had spent a lifetime ensuring he understood that duty—not through grand gestures, but through the steady work of keeping him connected to the people he served.
Courtesy of the obituary collection of the Late Rt. Hon. Bradley B. Roberts
The Abaco Foundation
Isabella McIntosh was born in Cornish Town, Abaco on June 24, 1928, the second of five children to Elizabeth and Prince Albert Cornish.
Courtesy of the obituary collection of the Late Rt. Hon. Bradley B. Roberts
Her father worked in the lumber mills, which meant the family moved between settlements in Abaco and Grand Bahama following the timber. She attended Old Place All-Age School, but her real education came from watching her parents maintain dignity despite the precarity of mill town life.
On August 4, 1947, while living in Pineridge, Grand Bahama, Isabella gave birth to her only son: Hubert Alexander Ingraham.
Three years later, she made a decision that would shape both their destinies.
The Sacrifice That Built Character
When Isabella married Sherwin McIntosh Laroda and moved to New Providence in 1950, she left three-year-old Hubert to be raised by her mother, Elizabeth Cornish. This reflected a Caribbean working-class survival strategy: the child stayed in the more stable environment while the mother established economic footing in Nassau.
More crucially, it ensured Hubert would be raised under his grandmother’s “strict discipline”—a woman who had survived the harshest decades of colonial rule and would live to 102. Elizabeth Cornish gave her grandson “instruction, discipline and national pride” rooted in Out Island self-reliance. Hubert Ingraham himself has acknowledged this as the “life-defining influence” on his development.
By 1955, Isabella was settled enough to give birth to her second child, Genevieve Carolyn, on January 15th. The family lived in Clarke Lane—a working-class neighborhood that would remain Isabella’s home for the rest of her life.
Courtesy of the obituary collection of the Late Rt. Hon. Bradley B. Roberts
The Principle of Staying Put
As her son rose through the political ranks—Member of Parliament, Minister, Leader of the Opposition, Prime Minister—his mother stayed in the same modest Clarke Lane house.
“Through all the changing social and political climate around her, Dama remained constant and unadorned in her lifestyle and outlook.” She devoted herself to “her family—especially her grandchildren and great-grandchild—to her friends from near and far, and to her church.”
The Architecture of Grounding
Hubert Ingraham, having experienced his grandmother’s shaping influence, made a conscious decision to replicate it. The Ingraham children went to Dama’s Clarke Lane house daily after school. Whenever their parents had evening engagements, they were babysat at Dama’s. Even when Keisha Ingraham returned from university abroad, “her first stop was always Dama’s house.”
Courtesy of the obituary collection of the Late Rt. Hon. Bradley B. Roberts
This wasn’t nostalgia—it was strategy. A Prime Minister deliberately structured his children’s lives to ensure they remained grounded in working-class Bahamian reality. The Ingraham children spent their formative hours in Clarke Lane, where their grandmother treated them exactly as she treated the neighbourhood children who weren’t her own.
Courtesy of the obituary collection of the Late Rt. Hon. Bradley B. Roberts
“Dama fully understood that in her Clarke Lane community she was expected to be not simply a resident but also an integral part of the community. Thus, she opened the doors of her home to many children who were not her own and demonstrated genuine concern and love for each one.”
The Political Corrective
Isabella served a function no adviser could replicate: “She was both an important ear and a critical sounding board for her son, especially after he entered public life. Her mission was to ensure that he would never lose touch with the concerns of everyday, ordinary Bahamians.”
Her son came by regularly for her “special dishes of fish or turtle”—not just for the food, but for the grounding that came with sitting in a Clarke Lane kitchen, hearing his mother’s unfiltered assessment of how policies were landing in the neighborhoods she knew intimately.
Courtesy of the obituary collection of the Late Rt. Hon. Bradley B. Roberts
Courtesy of the obituary collection of the Late Rt. Hon. Bradley B. Roberts
She was proud of his political achievements. But she was “even more proud that he was an unassuming, loving son.” The hierarchy is crucial: character mattered.
Three Generations of Transmission
Isabella’s mother, Elizabeth Cornish, died “at the reverent age of 102 three years ago” (around 1995), and “up to this time, Dama rendered loving care and attention to her mother.”
This creates a remarkable chain:
Elizabeth Cornish (c. 1893-1995) – raised grandson Hubert with strict discipline, lived to see him become Prime Minister
Isabella McIntosh-Laroda (1928-1998) – maintained working-class life despite son’s rise, kept him politically grounded
Hubert Ingraham (1947-) – deliberately replicated his grandmother’s influence through his mother for his own children
This is how values survive: through deliberate, structured transmission across generations.
The Unmeasured Contribution
Isabella’s obituary notes that she “passed on without fanfare, but as a person who has made a very significant contribution to Bahamian history.”
That contribution operates in registers we typically don’t count as “political”: creating secure environments for children, transmitting values through example, serving as community anchor, keeping power accountable to ordinary people’s concerns, bridging generations.
She didn’t pass legislation, but she shaped the moral framework of the man who did.
Proud Simplicity as Political Act
Isabella McIntosh-LaRoda lived her entire life in working-class neighborhoods—from Abaco lumber settlements to Nassau’s Clarke Lane. She never moved to more affluent areas despite undoubtedly having opportunity to do so.
This wasn’t inability to rise. It was refusal to abandon.
“Proud simplicity” isn’t poverty romanticized. It’s a deliberate choice to define success by different metrics—by children raised right, by community sustained, by values transmitted intact, by power kept accountable.
For seventy years, Isabella embodied that choice. Every politician who claims to represent “ordinary Bahamians” should study her life—not for campaign strategy, but for something more fundamental: how to remain connected to the people you serve when everything about power conspires to separate you.
Isabella’s answer was simple: You don’t just visit. You stay. You open your doors. You cook their food. You raise their children alongside your own. You make yourself not special, but integral.
She was an excellent cook who baked bread for her grandchildren. She cared for her 102-year-old mother. She kept her home open to neighborhood children. These sound like small things. They are the things that hold societies together.
Isabella McIntosh-Laroda (June 24, 1928 – June 30, 1998) is survived by her husband Sherwin McIntosh Laroda, son Prime Minister Rt. Hon. Hubert Ingraham, daughter Genevieve, grandchildren, and great-grandchild. She rests as she lived: without fanfare, but with significance that echoes still.
