Fathia Nkrumah

Helena Ritz Fathia Nkrumah (22 February 1932 – 31 May 2007), born Fathia Halim Rizk, was an Egyptian, and the First Lady of the newly independent Ghana as the wife of Kwame Nkrumah, its first president. Fathia Nkrumah was born to a Coptic Christian family and brought up in Zeitoun, a district of Cairo. She was the first child of a civil servant who died early; Fathia was raised by her mother single-handedly after her husband's death. Early life and career She was born Fathia Halim Rizk in Zeitoun, Cairo, in 1932. Her father worked as a clerk in an Egyptian telephone company and died early, leaving her mother widowed and having to raise Fathia single-handed. She was the eldest of five children in the family. After completing her secondary education, where she studied French, she worked as a teacher at her school in Zeitoun, Notre Dame des Apôtres. As teaching did not appeal to her, she took a job in a bank.