Ruth Williams Khama

Biography
Ruth Williams Khama “Lady Khama” was born 9 December 1923 in Blackheath in South London, and died of throat cancer in Gaborone at the age of 78 on the 22nd of May 2002. She was the wife to republic of Botswana's first president Sir Seretse Khama and a first lady of the country during the rule of his husband Seretse Khama from 1966 to 1980. As the first Lady of Botswana, Ruth became the president of the Botswana Red Cross Society which its main aim was to provide relief programs in the regiot, she also led organizations like the Girl Guides, Botswana Council of Women and the Child to Child Foundation. Lady Khama was buried in Serowe, Botswana next to her husband, recognized by all as "Mohumagadi Mma kgosi". Her marriage with Seretse Khama was the most controversial one which shocked the entire world around the 1940s and 1950s. Earlier in her life she attended Eltham Grammar School and then served as an ambulance driver in some of the airfields in south-east of England as a WAAF during the Second World War.

Quotes

 * We ask for bread and you give us stones.
 * Op-Ed: The Ruth Khama I knew, by Sue Grant-Marshall, Daily Maverck, retrieved 22 November 2022
 * There is a big part for me, as a woman, to play.
 * I travel to Britain and Switzerland as part of my charity work for the Red Cross, but I have no desire to go anywhere else... My home is here... When I came to this country I became a Motswana.
 * Ruth Williams Khama: first lady of Botswana, by History Extra, 29 March 2017, History Extra, retrieved 23 November 2022


 * The Press treated their marriage as front-page news. Here, flouting all the dangers he knew to be implicit in [inter-racial marriage], was the scion of the ancient and illustrious House of Khama...And here, seeking to be an African queen, was an English working girl who had been reared to expect nothing more exotic than a semi-detached house in one of London’s great dormitories and a husband who every morning would don his bowler hat, seize his umbrella and catch a red double-decker bus to the city.
 * The Ordeal of Seretse AND HIS White Queen Ruth,, by Mackenzie Porter, (15 May 1952), , retrieved 26 November 2022