Wangarĩ wa Nyatetũ-Waigwa

1950 — 2024

Early in the morning of Sunday 4 February 2024, Wangarĩ wa Nyatetũ-Waigwa, aged 73, passed away peacefully at home in the presence of her husband, after suffering for several years from Alzheimer’s disease. She was a professor emeritus of French at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, having retired at the end of 2010.

Anne Elizabeth Wangarĩ Waigwa was the fourth of six children, and the youngest of three girls, of Samuel Waigwa wa Gatamũ and Salome Nyatetũ wa Nganga. Born on 31 July 1950 at Tũmũtũmũ Hospital, she grew up in a rural area near Mũrũgũrũ village, not far from Nyeri town in Kenya, which was then Kenya Colony, a part of British East Africa. While still a young child, she and her family, as members of the Gĩkũyũ ethnic group, were imprisoned for a time in a detention camp during the ‘Kenya Emergency’, or ‘Mau Mau’ independence uprising of 1952 – 59.

Having performed excellently on countrywide exams at the end of seven years of primary school, Wangarĩ was selected by Alliance Girls’ High School, a prestigious ‘national’ boarding school founded in 1948 as the first high school for African girls in Kenya. She was at AGHS from January 1964 to November 1969, sitting both her Ordinary-level and Advanced-level Cambridge Syndicate examinations there, as well as making lifelong friends. Blessed with a strong, beautiful soprano voice, Wangarĩ always loved to sing. Music was one of her three principal A-level subjects (French was a subsidiary), and she won several awards in the annual Kenya Music Festival.

Following high school and brief work in Nairobi, Wangarĩ was awarded a French government scholarship in 1970. She spent eight preparatory months in Madagascar and three years in France, a country she thoroughly enjoyed living in, and where she formed lasting friendships. She received her Licence (bachelor’s degree) in Modern Letters from the University of Dijon in June 1974, and she also earned a teaching certification after a summer course at the University of Grenoble.

Upon returning to Kenya as a secondary school teacher, Wangarĩ was posted in December 1974 to her old school, Alliance Girls’ High School, where she taught French, as well as some English and religious studies, for almost six years. In addition, she conducted the Junior Choir and served for a time as the housemistress of Bruce House.

On Saturday 12 July 1980, Wangarĩ married Christopher Stone, an American expatriate who taught physics and maths at AGHS. They were agreed that living and working at Alliance Girls’ High School – with pupils who were not only remarkably bright but also exceptionally motivated, and fellow teachers who were friends both socially and spiritually – was the most satisfying and fulfilling job of their lives. For the schoolgirls of AGHS, the wedding of two of their teachers, held in the school chapel during term time, was a memorable event.

In September 1980, after a honeymoon in the Masai Mara game reserve and at Lake Baringo, Wangarĩ and Christopher moved to Salt Lake City for postgraduate studies at the University of Utah. While in graduate school, Wangarĩ worked as a teaching fellow for the French Department and gave birth to her two sons, Laikwan and Wachira. After receiving her PhD degree in 1989, she taught French for one year at Judge Memorial Catholic High School in Salt Lake City before being hired by the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at Weber State University, where she was a professor for more than 20 years.

Despite a tight family budget in the early years, Wangarĩ was tireless and creative in providing valuable experiences and opportunities for our young sons: reading to them daily, periodic trips to Kenya, music and swimming lessons, team sports, annual family visits to the Utah Shakespearian Festival, long-term participation in the University of Utah’s Children’s Dance Theatre, and more.

Expanding on the contents of her doctoral thesis, Wangarĩ’s book The Liminal Novel: Studies in the Francophone-African Novel as Bildungsroman was published by Peter Lang in 1996. She continued her research and writing on francophone writers of African descent, attending and contributing to literary conferences in North America, Europe, and western Africa, and visiting the Caribbean island of Martinique in the autumn of 2007 to interview the poet and founding father of Négritude Aimé Césaire, not long before his death the following year. While she was a professor at WSU, Wangarĩ established the charitable Amani (Peace) Endowment for Education in Kenya and conducted several fundraisers for it. In the late 1990s she started and directed the young people’s performing group TOUCH (Teens of Ogden United for Community Harmony). Wangarĩ became a naturalised US citizen on 28 May 2003. She enjoyed reading for pleasure, listening to classical music, and singing with the Wasatch Master Chorale of Ogden for many years.

Wangarĩ was brought up in a Christian family, and before she was 10 years old she made her own personal commitment to Jesus Christ, never wavering in that faith. From her mother’s Presbyterian church in Mũrũgũrũ, to the vibrant Christian fellowship at AGHS among both pupils and staff members, to attending Sunday services and the Evening Bible Institute at Nairobi Baptist Church when she taught at AGHS, and on to more than 25 years as a member at First Presbyterian Church of Ogden, Wangarĩ was always actively involved in her local Christian community. Besides serving as an ordained ruling elder at FPC Ogden, she founded and led both its women’s choral group the Grace Notes and its annual Festival of Song for many years. In June 2015 Wangarĩ welcomed the three children of a single mother from Saudi Arabia into our home, the youngest of whom (now aged 12) still lives with us as our de facto granddaughter.

Wangarĩ’s family are immensely grateful for the superb service provided by Intermountain Homecare & Hospice and all its nurses – especially those who tended to her most often, Amber and Awnalyssia – for the loving care and support they gave both Wangarĩ and us in her final three months.

Wangarĩ was preceded in death by her parents, her father-in-law, James W. Stone, and her half-brother-in-law, James Allen Stone. She is survived by her husband, Christopher Stone; their sons, Laikwan James Waigwa-Stone and Wachira Edgar Waigwa-Stone (Loreen Nariari); their granddaughters Randella and Larietta Alburaidi and grandson Ibrahim Alburaidi; her closest friend in the US, Lonah Masinde (Loreen’s mother); her siblings, Rose Nyagũthiĩ Waigwa, Esther Mũrugi Kahangi, Lee Warũingĩ, Jonathan Mũragũri, and Gatamũ Waigwa; her mother-in-law, Rosemary Stone; her sister-in-law, Kimberly Stone (Bob Maeda); her brothers-in-law, Craig Stone and Brett Stone (Patti Lury); her California cousin Githogori Nyangara Mũrage (Elizabeth Wanjirũ Chege); and numerous other relatives in Kenya and elsewhere. Wangarĩ bequeathed her mortal remains to the University of Utah body donor programme for medical training and research. A memorial service and celebration of her life, to be broadcast on the church’s YouTube channel, will be held at First Presbyterian Church of Ogden (880 28th Street) on Saturday 9 March 2024 at 10.00 am. Instead of flowers, donations may be made to the church in memory of Wangarĩ.