An Ode to My Mother-in-Law, Winnie Serobe: A mentorship of love and honour

By Gloria Tomatoe Serobe

Gloria Tomatoe Serobe, née Ndaliso, married Gaur Serobe in 1987, following a six-month courtship. And so began Gloria's 26-year relationship with her mother-in-law, Winnie Serobe.
Winnie Serobe was born in Thaba 'Nchu in 1933, in a deeply racialised South Africa. Yet she transcended all the barriers put in place by the South African government, and society at large, to become a nurse, midwife, community builder, social entrepreneur and leader. In the course of her marriage to Andrew Serobe, for 40 years, during which they became parents to five children, she was never only a wife and a mother.
This book is Gloria's ode of love, honour and respect to her mother-in-law, whom she referred to as Mama. It brings to life the story of a Winnie Serobe, who we may not read about when we look at the heroes and heroines of this country, but who served those around her every day.
She remains memorialised in the hearts and minds of those for whom she fought for the right to be educated; buried with dignity; and provided with the best quality healthcare – particularly for mothers and their unborn and new-born babies. Throughout her remarkable life, Winnie Serobe 'saw', 'heard', and homed some of the most vulnerable, stigmatised, ostracised and perhaps forgotten members of her community.
Throughout this life well lived, she nurtured and mentored Gloria as a makoti of the Serobe family. She reframed marriage, family and service for the young Gloria, lessons which Gloria shares in the pages of this book.
Gloria Tomatoe Serobe is a founding member and CEO of WIPHOLD and is a leading activist for community upliftment, the empowerment of women, and the sustainable transformation of the South African economic landscape. She has been recognised for her leadership in business and community activism with numerous awards, and a number of honorary degrees.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tracey McDonald Publishers
• Release date: Jul 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781998958726

Book preview

Part 1

The Serobe and the Ndaliso Families Come Together

Chapter 1

Introducing the Serobe matriarchs

When I married into the Serobe family at the age of 28, I had the privilege of knowing strong, courageous and impressive women. They were the matriarchs of this amazing family, which would become my own in all ways. And they provided me with love, caring, guidance and mentorship.

Both my husband’s grandmothers were alive.

MaRadebe was the mother of my mother-in-law, Winnie.

MaNoge was the mother of my father-in-law, Andrew Serobe.

And then there was the formidable and irrepressible Mme Winnie, my mother-in-law, whom I came to love and respect, like one of her own children.

The Serobe matriarchs had a strength and resilience that came from knowing they anchored their family. They were unwavering in their commitment to building a strong family through, amongst others, helping to integrate the new generation of husbands and wives who would enter the family.

They knew they would have to guide the daughters and sons, who would now be joining their family, and help them to understand the ways and complexities of the Serobes, who had their own nuances and particularities.

They equally knew they would have to be open minded enough to accept the spouses their children had chosen.

This was the only way the Serobe matriarchs of this family knew how to build their family; not through resistance and exclusion, but through acceptance, inclusion, teaching and learning.

These lessons were passed on to each new generation that entered the Serobe family and my mother-in-law, who married in 1955, was received and nurtured in this way. My mother-in-law was a 21-year-old bride. My father-in-law was 22 at the time. Both were so young and needed the wisdom and experience of MaNoge to build their family unit, while becoming part of each other’s families.

With only one daughter of her own, MaNoge adopted the 21-year-old new Serobe makoti Winnie, as her own.

I experienced no less when I joined this family 32 years later.

When I welcomed my only daughter-in-law 27 years later on 19 December 2014, I too did the same.

The relationship between MaNoge and Mme Winnie did not start off this smoothly.

When my father-in-law wanted to get married, he faced severe opposition from his mother. However, once the decision was taken for the marriage to proceed, MaNoge took my mother-in-law under her wing and their relationship grew and strengthened until MaNoge passed away.

At the end of the day, MaNoge also knew no other way to honour the love MaRadebe had invested in her daughter, Winnie, other than to do the same – to love, nurture and mentor her.

This shaped their relationship of mutual love, respect and humility.

And it is this that I encountered, and experienced, when I entered the Serobe family 32 years later.

When I witnessed the relationship between MaNoge and Mme Winnie, it was a relationship I wanted for myself.

Through my marriage, I learnt that a relationship such as this is built from early on. It is a dynamic exchange of old and new, building something beautiful, unique, and enduring.

When we get married, we bring our own ways of doing things. And our husbands are sometimes unable to assist us as we try to integrate into our new families.

I have learnt that our mothers-in-law can be powerful allies as we begin to build on our own homes and our new families.

Experiencing the Serobe matriarchs as I did, I aimed to become a mother-in-law such as this.

Inyathi ibuzwa kwabaphambili (meaning wisdom is learnt or sought from the elders in isiXhosa).

This book is a homage to the wisdom I have been privileged to gain from the Serobe matriarchs, in particular my mother-in-law, Mme Winnie Serobe. It is a homage to the love and mentorship they have provided to me in the 36 years I have been part of the Serobes.

Chapter 2

My mother-in-law, Mrs Winnie Serobe, née Radebe, is born

My mother-in-law, Mrs Winnie Serobe, was born Winnie Radebe on 8 December 1933, the eldest child to Gaur and Mirriam Radebe, in Matukaneng, Thaba ’Nchu, in the then Orange Free State. The province is now referred to as the Free State.

She was known as Sinkie by her family and community members.

Her father, Gaur Radebe¹, was an activist who would spend much of his life in the struggle to free South Africa from colonialism and apartheid. He was a member of the Communist Party of South Africa, and a unionist of note.

In 1941, he was amongst the founding members of the African Mineworkers’ Union. In 1943 and 1944, he helped lead the Alexandra bus boycotts. In 1959, he became the chairman of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) branch in Evaton.

Making his way to East Africa after Sharpeville, he was named chief PAC representative in Dar es Salaam in 1961. In 1964 he left Tanzania to become assistant PAC representative in Zambia, where he subsequently passed away in exile.

Her mother, Mirriam Radebe, née Sebitlo, was the sister to Rebecca, the wife of South African struggle hero Moses Kotane. While the archives of history speak more about Rebecca, it was impossible for Mirriam to not be affected by the political work of her sister, or the mood in the country.

Mirriam (MaRadebe) was a domestic worker. Winnie’s younger brother, Monty, would go on to become a physics lecturer at the Fort Hare University.

Thaba ’Nchu, one of the oldest settlements in the Free State, was formed in 1893 and named after the mountain to the south-east. The name is Sotho and means ‘black mountain’.

Upon reaching an agreement with Lesotho’s King Moshoeshoe I, the Barolong people – a tribe of Tswana people from both Botswana and South Africa – settled at Thaba ’Nchu.

Thaba ’Nchu, where Winnie was born

Interestingly, the people of Thaba ’Nchu accepted the Voortrekkers as allies and it subsequently became a safe meeting place for Afrikaner leaders such as Hendrik Potgieter, Piet Uys and Gerrit Maritz. When apartheid was instituted as an official policy of the State in 1948, Thaba ’Nchu formed part of the area set aside for the bantustan or homeland of Bophuthatswana, ruled by the then President Lucas Mangope.

Research² also tells us that the pass control laws were applied differently in the Orange Free State. While in the rest of the country, black women were generally exempted from pass control until the 1930s, both men and women in the province were subjected to a complex set of restrictions long before this.

At the same time, the economic conditions in the country in the 1930s were very difficult due to the global recession. South Africa was not spared. Unemployment was widespread and this exacerbated poverty. Families in the rural areas and the reserves struggled the most in such harsh conditions. This led to African women seeking work in towns, mostly as domestic workers, to help to supplement their income and feed their families.

Although it would be a few years before apartheid would be officially declared a policy of formalised segregation in the country, South Africa in 1933 was still a very hostile place for black people.

Women in particular were subjected to what is described as the triple oppression of race, gender and class.

This was the historical, political and socio-economic context into which my mother-in-law, Winnie Radebe, was born.

It is also these lived experiences that shaped her ethos of activism, community building and never-wavering service to others, throughout her life.

Chapter 3

Meet the Serobe matriarch, my mother-in-law, Mrs Winnie Serobe

As a newly married makoti, I had the great honour and privilege to know my mother-in-law in a deep and meaningful way. I was formally received into the Serobe family by MaNoge, Gaur’s grandmother on his father’s side, who I was able to get to know briefly before she passed away a few months after our marriage.

Mme Winnie, who I came to call Mama,