Nelson Mandela shared with his first wife, Evelyn, a passionate commitment to a cause. Unfortunately, it was not the same cause. Evelyn, who has died aged 82, was a Jehovah's Witness with no interest in politics.
As Mandela wrote in his autobiography, Long Walk To Freedom: "When I would tell her that I was serving the nation, she would reply that serving God was above serving the nation. A man and woman who hold such different views of their respective roles in life cannot remain close." Nevertheless, they were married for 13 years and had four children, one of whom died in infancy.
Apolitical though she was, Evelyn continued to pay the price of being a Mandela: the apartheid regime denied her a passport so she could not accompany her children to their private schools in neighbouring Swaziland. It was also Evelyn who had to find the money to pay their fees.
Born Evelyn Mase, in Engcobo, in the Transkei, she lost her father, a mineworker, while still a baby. Her mother died when Evelyn was 12, and she was sent to Soweto to join her brother, Sam, who was living with Mandela's great friend and mentor, Walter Sisulu (obituary, May 7 2003). Evelyn's mother and Walter's mother were sisters, and the families were very close. After high school in Soweto, Evelyn trained as a nurse.
It was in the early 1940s that she caught the eye of Mandela, then a frequent visitor to the Sisulu home. "She was a quiet, pretty girl, who did not seem overawed by the comings and goings," he wrote. They were married at the native commissioner's court in 1944, with Walter and Albertina Sisulu as witnesses. The wedding was a spartan affair because the couple could not afford a feast. Nor could they afford a home of their own, living first with her brother in Orlando East and then with her sister. Their first child, Thembi, was born a year later.
As Mandela became more involved with the ANC, he spent less and less time at home. Martin Meredith, in his biography of Mandela, claims he had affairs. In 1952, Evelyn spent several months in Durban training to become a midwife, while her husband's mother and sister took care of the children. Meredith reports that Evelyn returned to find Mandela's secretary installed in her home. Evelyn, a tough woman, threatened to throw boiling water over her and the woman left the house, but the affair continued.
Evelyn was never reconciled to living in Johannesburg. She wanted the family to return to the Transkei, where Mandela could take his place in the local Xhosa aristocracy. But it was her religious activities that caused the most trouble between them. The loss of her first daughter, Makaziwe, devastated Evelyn, and when another daughter, also named Makaziwe, was born in 1954, she took it as a sign from God and became a Jehovah's Witness.
The house became a battleground between religion and politics, with the children as cannon fodder. Evelyn took them to church and made them sell the Watchtower magazine around Soweto. Mandela lectured them on politics. Sisulu tried to intervene, but was told by a furious Mandela that he no longer loved his wife.
Evelyn gave him an ultimatum: choose between me and the ANC. It was no contest, and she and the children moved out. Shortly afterwards, Mandela met Winnie Madikizela, who became his second - and much more high-profile - wife in 1958.
Evelyn returned with the children to Cofimvaba, in the Eastern Cape, where she opened a grocery store. Tragedy struck again in 1969 when her oldest son, Thembi, was killed in a road accident. Mandela, by then serving life imprisonment on Robben Island, wrote of his pain at not being allowed to attend his son's funeral. He wrote, he said, to Evelyn, to do his best to comfort her.
She remained a Mandela until 1998, when she married a fellow Jehovah's Witness and retired Sowetan businessman, Simon Rakeepile. She is survived by her daughter Makaziwe, and her son Makgatho.
ยท Evelyn Rakeepile, born 1922; died April 30 2004