Evelyn Mase

Evelyn Ntoko Mase (18 May 1922 – 30 April 2004), later named Evelyn Rakeepile, was the first wife of the South African anti-apartheid activist and the future president Nelson Mandela, to whom she was married from 1944 to 1958.

Mase was a nurse by profession.

Born in Engcobo, Transkei, Mase was orphaned as a child.

She moved to Johannesburg to train as a nurse, and there met and married Mandela.

Living together in Soweto, they raised four children, three of whom—Thembekile, Makgatho, and Makaziwe—survived into adulthood.

She trained to be a midwife while working as a nurse.

Evelyn Mase was born in 1922 in Engcobo, Transkei.

Her father was a mineworker and her mother was his second wife; they had six children, three of whom died in infancy.

Mase's father died when she was still a child.

Mase's mother then died when she was 12, leaving her under the care of her older brother, Sam Mase.

A devout Christian, Sam had a close friendship with former schoolmate Walter Sisulu; they were cousins, as their mothers were sisters.

In 1928, Sisulu moved to the Soweto area of Johannesburg, obtaining a house in the Orlando East township.

Sam joined him there and, becoming politicised, encouraged Sisulu to read left-wing literature.

In 1939, Evelyn joined her brother and Sisulu in Johannesburg.

She trained as a nurse in the city's non-European hospital at Hillbrow, fulfilling the wishes of her late mother that she would enter that profession.

There, she befriended Walter's girlfriend Albertina, whom he met in 1941 and married in 1944.

Mase was a bridesmaid at the Sisulus' wedding.

Writing in his later autobiography, Nelson Mandela recounted that the Sisulus treated Mase "as if she was a favorite daughter".

At the hospital she worked alongside Rosemary Mda, the wife of anti-apartheid activist A. P. Mda.

When the Sisulus moved to a larger home, they gave their old house to Sam.

Evelyn and Sam continued to visit the Sisulus at their new house, 7372 Orlando West, meeting their lodger, Nelson Mandela.

At this point he was studying law at the University of Witwatersrand.

Mandela later related that at that time, Mase was "a quiet, pretty girl from the countryside".

She later informed Fatima Meer that "I think I loved him the first time I saw him", and they started dating after a few days.

Within several months, Mandela proposed marriage to Mase, delighting her brother and the Sisulus.

Their civil wedding took place on 5 October 1944 at Johannesburg's Native Commissioner's Court.

There were no traditional Xhosa elements in the ceremony; they could not afford a wedding feast.

The newly married couple had little money; Mase earned 18 pounds a month from nursing while Mandela worked part-time.

They moved into a room at the house of Evelyn's sister Kate, where they lived alongside her husband Mgudlwa, a clerk at City Deep Mines, and two children.

In the 1950s, her relationship with Mandela became strained.

He was becoming increasingly involved in the African National Congress and its campaign against apartheid; Mase eschewed politics and became a Jehovah's Witness.

She also accused him of adultery with several women, an accusation corroborated by later biographies, and of being physically abusive, something he always denied.

They separated in 1956.

She initially filed for divorce, but did not go through with the legal proceedings.

In 1958, Mandela, who was hoping to marry Winnie Madikizela, obtained an uncontested divorce from Mase.

Taking the children, Mase moved to Cofimvaba and opened a grocery store.

She generally avoided publicity, but spoke to South African reporters when Mandela was released from prison after 27 years in 1990.

Deepening her involvement with the Jehovah's Witnesses, in 1998 she married a businessman, Simon Rakeepile.

She died in 2004 following a respiratory illness.

Her funeral attracted international media attention and was attended by Mandela, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, and Mandela's third wife, Graça Machel.