Veteran politician Jaramogi Oginga Odinga's first wife Mary Ajuma bore him among others his political successor and current opposition chief Raila Odinga and his elder brother and former Bondo lawmaker Oburu Oginga.
Though very few facts are recorded about Mary and Jaramogi's other four wives, it is known that she died in 1984 and though all the other family members are likely to have attended both the burial and its preparations, Raila never made it to see-off her mother.
The sad event came only two years after the botched 1982 coup against President Daniel Moi's government, where Jaramogi and Raila were both named in the futile attempt by a section of Air-force army men led by Senior Private Hezekiah Ochuka.
Consequently, Raila was placed under house arrest for seven months and would later be arrested and detained for treason.
It was during his time in prison that his mother died, but the warders would only tell the leader, who was completely secluded about his mother's death two months later.
Mary was buried at the Oginga family cemetery at his Kang'o Ka Jaramogi home in Bondo, Siaya county, which has since been transformed into a museum and where other family members including Jaramogi himself was laid to rest.
Raila was released on 6, February 1988 without any trial, but would again be arrested September the same year for his pro-democracy and human rights campaigns which offended Moi's Nyayo government.
When he was finally released after many other trips to and from prison in 1991, Raila fled to Norway.
Jaramogi who also received his share of problems for his alleged involvement in the failed coup, died in 1994, aged 82 in Nairobi.
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