Albertina Sisulu - Personal Life

Personal Life

Albertina first met Walter Sisulu in 1941 while working at Johannesburg General Hospital; at that time he was a young political activist. They married in 1944. The Sisulus – a lawyer and a nurse – married in 1944 at a ceremony in which Nelson Mandela was the best man. The couple had five children, Max Vuyisile, Mlungisi, Zwelakhe, Lindiwe and Nonkululeko, and adopted four others. An adopted daughter, Beryl Rose Sisulu, served as ambassador from the Republic of South Africa to Norway.

They were married for 59 years, until he died in his wife's arms in May 2003 at the age of 90. Albertina said of her marriage: "I was told that I was marrying a politician and there was no courtship or anything like that." Yet at his funeral their granddaughter read a tribute to him on her behalf: "Walter, what do I do without you? It was for you who I woke up in the morning, it was for you who I lived ... You were taken away by the evils of the past the first time, but I knew you would come back to me. Now the cold hand of death has taken you and left a void in my heart."

Her husband, Walter Sisulu, who died in 2003, was found guilty of high treason and sabotage, but was spared the death sentence. He instead spent 25 years in custody on Robben Island alongside Nelson Mandela, whom he had brought into the ANC, now South Africa′s governing party. While her husband was on Robben Island, Albertina Sisulu raised the couple′s five children alone. She spent months in jail herself and had her movements restricted.

Sisulu scraped and saved for her children to attend good schools in Swaziland outside the inferior Bantu Education System. Several of the Sisulu children have themselves become leaders in the democratic South Africa. Max Sisulu is the speaker in the National Assembly; Mlungisi Sisulu is President of the Walter Sisulu Pediatric Cardiac Foundation and Chairman of Arup Africa. Adopted daughter Beryl Sisulu is South Africa′s ambassador in Norway; Lindiwe Sisulu is the minister of defence; Zwelakhe Sisulu (who passed away on the 4th of October 2012), was a prominent businessman; and daughter-in-law Elinor Sisulu, married to Max, is a well-known author and human rights activist.

In 2000, the family publicly disclosed that their adopted son, Gerald Lockman, had died of HIV/Aids.

Her life is detailed in a biography by her daughter-in-law Elinor Sisulu, Walter and Albertina Sisulu: In our lifetime.