The remains of Patience Tam-George, the mother of a former Commissioner for Information in Rivers State, Dr. Austin Tam-George, will be laid to rest on Friday, 10 April, in Okrika, Rivers State.
Mama Patience Tam-George passed away peacefully on 3 March at the age of 93. The funeral service will be held at St. Andrews Anglican Church, George Ama, Okrika, at 10am, according to the family.
The funeral rites will start with a candlelight procession on Tuesday, 7 April, at George Ama, Okrika, by 7pm and a Service of Songs on Wednesday, 8 April, at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, George Ama, by 5pm.
The Sonny Tam-George family, friends and sympathisers will return to St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, George Ama, on Sunday, 12 April, for a thanksgiving service.
Biography
Mama Patience Tam-George was born in 1933 in the Abam community of present-day Rivers and grew up in a close-knit family environment where she learned the values of hard work, faith, and respect for community, principles that would shape and guide her throughout her life, according to the family.
In her early adulthood, she married Sonny Tam-George, a family-oriented and ambitious man (our beloved father), from the neighbouring George Community in Okrika, Rivers.
Through this union, which produced nine children in all, she became part of the George community, where she built a life centred on family, service, and strong communal ties.
The biography says that Mama Patience did not have the opportunity to attend school in her early years because, at the tender age of eight, she took on the role of primary caregiver to her grandmother, Ma Ine Amakiri, but that she understood the value of education and made the remarkable decision to send all her children to school.
When her husband died unexpectedly, leaving Mama with young children (aged from two to 15), Mama showed incredible resilience in raising all her children as a widow.
Today, her children and grandchildren have walked the academic hallways of some of the best schools in the world: from Nigeria to the Caribbean, Canada, the United States, Ghana, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Europe.
Those who knew her remember her as a woman of wisdom, kindness, and quiet strength. She was respected among family members and friends alike for her generosity of spirit and the guidance she offered to younger generations.
On 19 June 2022, during that year’s Father’s Day celebration, the former Information Commissioner in Rivers, Dr Tam-George, wrote a beautiful piece titled “Happy Father’s Day, Mom!” in celebration of his mother, Mama Patience.
“I lost my dad before I was two years old. So my mom is also the only ‘father’ I have known,” he wrote in the piece.
Dr Tam-George, a communication and public policy consultant, is the Executive Director of the Institute of Communication and Corporate Studies, Lagos.
On 13 February 2016, Mama Patience, then 83, was abducted by kidnappers at George Ama, Okrika, while she was finishing a meal after returning from church.
She was released after six days in captivity.
