Evelyn Ntoko Mase

Evelyn Ntoko Mase
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Name	Evelyn Ntoko Mase
Birth date	1922
Birth place	Engcobo, Eastern Cape, South Africa
Death date	2004
Death place	Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
Nationality	South African
Spouse	Nelson Mandela (m. 1944–1958)
Children	Thembekile Mandela, Makgatho Mandela, Makaziwe Mandela (first), Makaziwe Mandela (second)
Occupation	Nurse, social worker, shopkeeper

Evelyn Ntoko Mase Evelyn Ntoko Mase was a South African nurse and community figure best known for her marriage to Nelson Mandela and for her subsequent work in healthcare and local community initiatives in Johannesburg, Soweto, and the Eastern Cape. Born in rural Engcobo during the era of the Union of South Africa, she moved to urban centers where she engaged with institutions such as Baragwanath Hospital and marketplaces that connected her to urban African communities and anti-apartheid activists including figures in the African National Congress circles. Her life intersected with leaders and events across mid-20th-century South Africa, touching on relationships with political figures and involvement in social welfare initiatives.

Early life and family

Evelyn Ntoko Mase was born in 1922 in Engcobo, Eastern Cape, into a family shaped by the colonial and missionary presence in the region. She was raised within Xhosa-speaking communities influenced by the legacy of Kingdom of the Xhosa traditions and the missionary activities of organizations connected to London Missionary Society and Methodist missions. Her upbringing exposed her to the rural social structures of the Cape Province and to the migratory labor systems linking the Eastern Cape with urban centers such as Johannesburg and Durban. As a young woman she trained and worked in nursing at institutions connected to urban healthcare networks like Baragwanath Hospital and engaged with community networks that included members of families associated with the ANC Women's League and trade unions active in the Witwatersrand region.

Marriage to Nelson Mandela

In 1944 Evelyn Ntoko Mase married Nelson Mandela in a union that connected two families from the Transkei and the Mvezo region of the Eastern Cape. The marriage occurred during a period when Mandela was active in the African National Congress and in community organizing alongside contemporaries such as Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, and Anton Lembede. The couple lived in Johannesburg and later in Soweto, where they interacted with leaders of the South African Communist Party, legal figures from Native Affairs disputes, and activists involved in campaigns like the 1946 Passive Resistance Campaign and later the Defiance Campaign. Evelyn and Mandela had four children—Makaziwe, Thembekile Mandela, Makgatho Mandela, and a later child also named Makaziwe—and their household became linked to networks including lawyers who later represented ANC members, trade unionists from the South African Railway and Harbour Workers' Union, and community leaders in townships shaped by policies from Native Laws Amendment Act era governance.

Role as First Lady and public life

During the period when Nelson Mandela emerged as a national figure—through legal work with firms like that associated with Olive Shreiner-era successors and political activity within the African National Congress—Evelyn Ntoko Mase's public profile was shaped by roles common to political spouses of the time: maintaining family life amid relocations to Soweto residences, engaging with community health initiatives connected to institutions such as Baragwanath Hospital and township clinics, and interacting with women's groups that included members of the Federation of South African Women and local branches of the ANC Women's League. Her public life intersected with campaigns opposing segregationist measures enacted by National Party governments and with community responses to policies like the Group Areas Act. While not publicly prominent in national leadership forums that included figures such as Albert Luthuli and Hendrik Verwoerd, her position placed her within the social milieu surrounding high-profile trials and campaigns that involved legal settings like the Rivonia Trial and community mobilizations in the Witwatersrand townships.

Later life, career, and community work

After her separation and eventual divorce from Mandela in 1958, Evelyn Ntoko Mase worked in various community-centered roles including nursing, social services, and small-scale commerce in Johannesburg and surrounding townships. She engaged with charitable and mutual-aid networks that connected to organizations such as the South African Institute of Race Relations and local civic associations in Soweto. Her work addressed healthcare access and family welfare during the height of apartheid policies such as influx control and pass laws enforced by the Pass Laws regime. In later decades she maintained ties with community elders and participated in informal dispute resolution among residents of township neighborhoods influenced by migration from regions like the Transkei and Ciskei. Her life after divorce also involved navigation of inheritance and custody issues that intersected with legal institutions including magistrates' courts and customary law practitioners in the Eastern Cape.

Personal life and death

Evelyn Ntoko Mase lived much of her later life away from the international spotlight that followed Nelson Mandela's global prominence after release from Robben Island and during the transition to democratic rule culminating in the 1994 South African general election. She married again briefly to Lance van Wyk (sometimes cited in accounts), and maintained relationships with her children including Makgatho Mandela and Thembekile Mandela, whose own lives connected to later figures in South African public life. Evelyn died in 2004 in Johannesburg; her passing was acknowledged in communities across the Eastern Cape and by residents of Soweto who recalled her roles in healthcare and neighborhood support. Her life remains intertwined with landmark figures and events of 20th-century South Africa, linking local social work to the larger history of activism around leaders such as Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, Albert Luthuli, and institutions like the African National Congress and ANC Women's League.

Category:1922 births Category:2004 deaths Category:People from the Eastern Cape Category:South African nurses Category:Spouses of presidents of South Africa