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First wife of Mandela dies

JOHANNESBURG: Nelson Mandela's first wife, Evelyn Mandela, who quit the couple's marriage after telling him to choose between her and the African National Congress liberation movement, died on April 30 at the age of 82. Mr. Mandela, who was in Trinidad and Tobago lobbying to bring the 2010 World Cup soccer championships to South Africa, cut short his trip in order to attend her funeral. Evelyn Mandela, a member of the Jehovah's Witness denomination, separated from Mr. Mandela in 1955 after what he described in his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, as an irreconcilable conflict between politics and religion. ``I could not give up my life in the struggle, and she could not live with my devotion to something other than herself and her family,'' he wrote. ``I never lost my admiration for her, but in the end we could not make our marriage work.'' Evelyn Mandela, a cousin of the legendary anti-apartheid figure, Walter Sisulu, married Mr. Mandela in 1944. The couple had four children, one of whom died in infancy.

— New York Times News Service

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