Community role model laid to rest

Charismatic 82-year-old Glenrose Mpembe was buried on Saturday at ePhangweni Mission Cemetery. The funeral was attended by more than 300 mourners from all parts of South Africa like Gauteng, Eastern Cape, Durban, Ladysmith and Pietermaritzburg. In his spiritual address, Reverend Xaba told the congregation that elderly people work hard to keep their families together and provide shelter for their children, only to find that liquor destroys everything. He appealed to the community to fight substance abuse in any form.
A humble servant of the people, Gogo Mpembe was known for her love of gardening. She had a garden of vegetables, flowers and trees.  She followed a self-reliant life of ‘one home, one garden’ before the new South African government encouraged people to till the soil.  Gogo Mpembe was a shining example to the community around her with enough water tanks to last for another dry season, using it wisely to irrigate her vegetation, flush toilets and other household needs.
Just a few days before she passed-on, she gave us big pears from one of her own trees and told us (my wife and I) that “we must use all efforts to plant and encourage our children as the soil is fertile for everything and one saves a lot from a home garden”. In an interview with her son, Bongi Don Mpembe, a Correctional Service officer, he said she was a retired teacher and a senior nurse at the Edendale Hospital.
She taught at Mfuma Primary School in Mgababa on the South Coast for 10 years. She trained at the Edendale Nursing College in 1960 and was also employed by the hospital. Later she specialised in Orthopaedics. In 1984 she was transferred to kwaHlengabantu to supervise the department. After retirement she continued to work for the SANTA hospital at Edendale for another 10 years. As a people’s person, she came to reside at ePhangweni Mission and worked for kwaBhekuzulu under Phathiwe Hadebe. She also introduced a vegetable garden at the centre and practically participated in tilling the soil. She joined the Philisanani Retired Nurses Association in 2013 and made a positive input.  The late Gogo Mpembe who was admitted less than a week in a Pietermaritzburg hospital passed away on January 30, 2015. She is survived by two daughters, a son and 10 grandchildren. May her soul rest in peace.