Children's welfare campaigner Eileen Mary Whitaker has died, ending a lifetime career of caring for neglected children in Durban and surrounding townships.
Whitaker died last Friday aged 93. She was born in 1907 in England's Newcastle-on-Tyne, before her family moved to South Africa when she was three.
"Most of her life was spent in the welfare field, mainly in child welfare," said her nephew, Peter Eldridge.
Her 10 years of service with the Durban Child Welfare Society was followed by "the most challenging and rewarding years of her working life".
"She joined the African Child Welfare Society, serving among the most deprived and disadvantaged of our community from the '50s through to the '70s," said Eldridge.
During that period, she established a home for abandoned and neglected babies, Othandweni (place of love), at Lamontville. This was followed by the mushrooming of 13 creches in other townships.
"This was her special area, where working mothers could safely leave their children, where their social and health needs were tended to."