Nzimande a devoted and loving mother
Mam Nozipho played her part
Born: May 20 1927 Died: June 11 Funeral: Saturday, 9am, Caluza Sports Complex, Edendale Burial: George Town Cemetery Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande will lay his mother to rest on Saturday.
Nozipho Alice Adelaide Nzimande was born on May 20 1927 as Nozipho Lukhalo at Chancele, Mt Frere, in what is now part of the Eastern Cape.
Her father was Jeffreys Lukhalo and her mother was Ntombana Hadebe. Together with her mother, they left Mt Frere for Qumbu, to a village known as Qhanqu, before Nozipho was 10.
She grew up in Qumbu, mainly looked after by her grandmother.
Nozipho schooled in Qumbu, and later went to All Saints College in Engcobo where she qualified as a primary school teacher in the mid-1940s.
She started teaching at Umzimkhulu, but later, in 1952, moved to KwaDambuza in Pietermaritzburg to join her mother.
In Pietermaritzburg she met and married her husband, Sphambano Phillip Nzimande in 1959. Sphambano had left his birthplace in Mozambique to work in the mines in Johannesburg and then moved to Pietermaritzburg where he became a well-known herbalist.
Nozipho and Sphambano had three children: eldest son Bonginkosi (Blade), daughter Duduzile (Mano) and youngest son Mxolisi (who died in 2001).
One of her biggest moments was when Blade graduated with a BA degree from the University of Zululand in 1980.
She paid for Blade’s first instalment at varsity in 1976 with money she had borrowed from loan sharks.
She was a devoted Catholic, a die-hard Orlando Pirates supporter and ANC loyalist till the end.
She leaves behind two children (Blade and Mano); 11 grandchildren, eight greatgrandchildren, and one greatgreat-grandchild.