Love for people ran in Mthembu’s veins
Family, community poorer without her
Born: August 22 1937 Died: September 23 Funeral: On Sunday at house No. 1149 Zola North, Soweto, from 9am Burial: Roodepoort Cemetery Gladys Nocawa Mthembu lived to serve her community and the sickly.
“She loved her community and would go out of her way to help people around her,” said her daughter Thandi Miya.
“She sacrificed all her energy helping school children, childheaded families and the community at large.
“She was a great wife, a great mother and grandmother. My mother was a pillar of strength of the family and we are struggling to cope with her death.”
A qualified nurse, Mthembu worked for a private doctor in Eldorado Park for many years after she relocated to Johannesburg from Bloemfontein where she was born in 1937.
“She came to Johannesburg as a young lady. It was here where she met my father, Simon Mthembu, and they got married and started a family,” Miya said. “My mother loved her job as a nurse because she was born to help people.”
Her husband, who was the manager of Moroka Swallows football club, died in 2002.
Mthembu was also an ANC councillor in Zola and provincial chairwoman of the party’s women’s league. She also chaired various committees of the party.
Mthembu died on Saturday at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital after a long illness. She was 80 years old.
She is survived by five children – three daughters and two sons – grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
She will be buried in Roodepoort, West Rand, on Sunday.