Teresia Wanjiru Muriithi
Premium memorialLovingly known as “Mama Teresia”
4 December 1938 — 12 May 2019 · aged 80
Tea picker who became a factory director and sent thirty-eight Tetu girls to school
Nyeri, Kenya Born in Tetu, Nyeri County Resting at Family farm, Tetu, Nyeri CountyAbout Teresia
Fourteen kilograms. That was Teresia Wanjiru's first day's tally as a tea picker, at the age of eleven, in 1950 on a neighbour's plot in Tetu, and she carried the number in her head for the rest of her life, reciting it to younger women whenever they complained that the leaf was heavy. By the time she died in 2019 she had picked, planted, weighed, argued over and finally helped to run a good part of Nyeri's tea industry.
She was born in 1938, married young and was widowed at thirty-one, left with five children and half an acre. She planted tea on it in 1969, among the first smallholders on her ridge to join the Kenya Tea Development Authority. When green-leaf payments were late she walked to the buying centre every week to ask why, and within months other farmers began walking with her. In 1982 she was elected to the committee of the Chinga Tea Factory, one of the first women to hold such a seat, and for twenty years she questioned every figure put in front of her, in Kikuyu, English and a very effective silence.
She did not stop at tea. Mama Teresia started a quiet bursary out of her bonus, paying school fees for thirty-eight girls from Tetu who might otherwise have married early; seven went on to university. She sold mandazi at the factory gate to raise money for the parish roof and sang in the Catholic Women's Association at St. Teresa's, always slightly ahead of the beat. Her kitchen was never without ripe bananas, hot chai and someone who needed a talking-to.
She died on a Sunday in May 2019, after Mass, in the chair beside her tea bushes. She leaves five children, twenty-one grandchildren and a long, orderly row of green terraces.
“Every leaf is a school fee if you pick it right.”
- Faith
- Christian
- Place of birth
- Tetu, Nyeri County
- Resting place
- Family farm, Tetu, Nyeri County
- Passed away
- 12 May 2019, Nyeri
Requiem Mass
Monday, 20 May 2019 at 08:00 UTC
Add to calendarMemorial fund
Mama Teresia Girls' Bursary
Continue the bursary she started: school fees for girls from Tetu who would otherwise leave school early.
$3,111.25 raised of $6,000
52%20 recent contributions
- BM
Beatha Mukamana gave $23.75 · 7y ago
- SG
Samuel Gitonga gave $142.50 · 7y ago
- GN
Gladys Nyambura gave $190 · 7y ago
- DM
Dr. Esi Mensah gave $47.50 · 7y ago
- LB
Larry Becker gave $23.75 · 7y ago
“From your old classmates.”
Life journey
Tea picker
Tetu smallholder plots1950 – 1969 · Tetu, Nyeri
Began at eleven with a first day's tally of fourteen kilograms.
Widowed with five children
1969 · Tetu
Planted her first half-acre of tea the same year.
Smallholder tea farmer
Kenya Tea Development Authority1969 – 2015 · Nyeri
Grew her half-acre into a model farm of six acres.
Factory committee member
Chinga Tea Factory1982 – 2002 · Nyeri
One of the first women elected to the committee, and a stubborn auditor of every number.
Founder, girls' school fees bursary
St. Teresa's Parish, Tetu1985 – 2019 · Tetu
Paid fees for thirty-eight girls; seven reached university.
Woman Farmer of the Year, Nyeri
Ministry of Agriculture1997 · Nyeri
For leadership among smallholder tea growers.
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Family & connections
Teresia is survived by
- Dr. Agnes Wangui Muriithi· Daughter
- John Gichuki Muriithi· Son
- Joseph Mwangi Muriithi· Son
- Mary Wambui Muriithi· Daughter
- 21 grandchildren· Grandchildren
Tributes & memories
6 people have shared a memory of Teresia.
Knew Teresia? Share a memory with the family and everyone who loved them.
Sign in to write a tribute- SG
Neighbour in Tetu
When my cow died she lent me hers for a year without being asked. When I tried to give it back she said, 'Keep it, and lend it on when somebody else is stuck.' I have lent that cow's grandchildren to three families since.
- LK
Cousin
At our grandmother's funeral Teresia was the one who calmly took charge of two hundred plates of food and a leaking tent. She never raised her voice, only her eyebrows. Somehow everything worked. That was her gift: calm that you could lean on.
- CW
Bursary beneficiary, now a pharmacist in Houston
I was fourteen and about to be married off when Mama Teresia appeared with my fees in an envelope. She said, 'You will thank me by finishing.' I finished, and I became a pharmacist. I send fees to two girls in Tetu every year now.
- FM
Parish priest, St. Teresa's Tetu
She came to Mass every day, and sat in the same pew, and corrected my Kikuyu hymn pronunciations quietly afterwards. The church roof has her mandazi money in it. I think of her every time it rains and the building keeps us dry.
- SN
Former director, Chinga Tea Factory
She read every balance sheet twice and found the error in the third. For twenty years she was the committee's conscience, and I do not think we ever won an argument with her. We only learned to ask her first.
- GN
Fellow tea farmer, Tetu
In 1991 the factory delayed our bonus by three months. Mama Teresia gathered forty women at her gate at dawn and walked us to the office in a line. The cheque came that week. We called it the March of the Green Leaf and she called it 'asking nicely'.
