Ida Betty Anyango Oyoo, daughter of Kenya’s first black nurse Rosa Oyoo, met her future husband Raila Odinga in 1972 at the University of Nairobi where she was a second-year geography student.
They wedded in 1973, and in the years that followed, Ida suffered two miscarriages before giving birth to their first son Fidel in 1973.
Their second son was stillborn due to umbilical cord strangulation, but in 1977, Ida gave birth to their daughter, Rosemary, and in 1979, their son, Junior.
Over the years, Raila was detained and tortured in Kamiti, Naivasha, Manyani, and Shimo La Tewa, and Ida was fired irregularly from her teaching job at The Kenya High School in 1988. She gave birth to her last child, Winnie, in 1990, naming her after Winnie Mandela.
