Evelyn Mase

Evelyn Mase
Mase (right) with Mandela (left) on the wedding day of Walter and Albertina Sisulu, 1944.
Born	18 May 1922 Engcobo, South Africa
Died	30 April 2004(2004-04-30) (aged 81)
Spouse(s)	Nelson Mandela (m. 1944–1958) Simon Rakeepile (m. 1998–2004; her death)
Children	Madiba Thembekile Mandela Makgatho Mandela Makaziwe Mandela

Evelyn Mase (18 May 1922 – 30 April 2004) was a South African nurse, who was the first wife of the anti-apartheid activist and future politician Nelson Mandela, to whom she was married from 1944 to 1958. She was the mother of four of his children, including Makgatho Mandela and Makaziwe Mandela.

She met Mandela through her cousin Walter Sisulu and his wife Albertina, subsequently marrying him at the Native Commissioner's Court. Living together as a family in Soweto, they raised four children. However, their relationship came under strain as Mandela became increasingly involved in the African National Congress. Eschewing politics, she became a Jehovah's Witness. Accusing him of adultery, they divorced in 1958, and he went on to marry Winnie Mandela that year. Taking the children, she moved to Cofimvaba and opened a grocery store, but appeared in the South African press when Mandela was released. In 1998 she married a Sowetan businessman Simon Rakeepile. Her funeral attracted international attention, being attended by Mandela, Winnie, and Mandela's third wife, Graca Machel.

A Xhosa from the Transkei, she was the daughter of a mineworker. Evelyn's father died when she was a child, leaving behind his second wife and their six children. Three of these siblings died while still in infancy, while Evelyn's mother died when she was 12, leaving her and her sister Kate under the care of her older brother, Sam Mase. A devout Christian, Sam had a close friendship with his cousin, Walter Sisulu, with whom he went to school. In 1928, Sisulu moved to Soweto, Johannesburg, obtaining a house in the Orlando East township, later to be joined there by Sam. Becoming politicised, he encouraged Sisulu to read left-wing literature and join the ANC. In 1939, Evelyn joined her brother and cousin, to train as a nurse in the city's non-European hospital at Hillbrow, fulfilling the wishes of her late mother. There, she befriended Walter's girlfriend Albertina, whom he had met in 1941, and whom he would marry in 1944.