Albertina Nontsikelelo Sisulu

Nontsikelelo Albertina Sisulu ( Thethiwe; 21 October 1918 – 2 June 2011) was a South African anti-apartheid activist, and the wife of fellow activist Walter Sisulu (1912–2003). She was affectionately known as "Ma Sisulu" throughout her lifetime by the South African public. In 2004 she was voted 57th in the SABC3's Great South Africans. She died on 2 June 2011 in her home in Linden, Johannesburg, South Africa, aged 92. Early life Born Nontsikelo Thethiwe in the Tsomo district of the Transkei on 21 October 1918, she was the second of five children of Bonilizwe and Monikazi Thethiwe. Sisulu's mother survived the Spanish Flu, but was constantly ill and very weak because of this. It fell upon Nontsikelelo, as the eldest girl, to take on a motherly role for her younger siblings. She had to stay out of school for long periods of time, which resulted in her being two years older than the rest of her class in her last year of primary school. She adopted the name Albertina when she started her schooling at a Presbyterian mission school. In 1936, she left for Mariazell College in Matatiele in the Eastern Cape. The school's routine was rigid and strict: pupils were woken up at 4am to bath and clean their dormitories, and would then proceed to the chapel for morning prayers. Although her scholarship covered her board and lodging, she had to pay it back during the school holidays by ploughing the fields and working in the laundry room. Sisulu only went home during the December holidays. When she finished school in 1939, she decided to become a nurse. She was accepted as a trainee nurse at a Johannesburg "Non-European" hospital called Johannesburg General. After spending Christmas with her family in Xolobe she left for Johannesburg in January 1940.