Ekaterina Geladze
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Ekaterina Geladze (familiarly known as "Keke" ) (1858-1937) was the mother of Joseph Stalin. She was born to a family of Georgian Orthodox Christian serfs in Gori, Georgia, in 1858 and although her father, Glakh Geladze, died young and the family was always poor, somehow her mother ensured that Keke learned to read and write.
Keke met and married Vissarion Jughashvili at the age of 16. Her first two children died shortly after birth -- Mikhail in 1876 and Georgi the following year. Her third son (and last child), Joseph, was born on December 6, 1878 and survived. Nicknamed "Soso", Joseph grew up in a violent home: his father ("Beso") was incessantly drunk and beat his mother and him frequently. Before Joseph was 10, Beso left the family home (some sources say he was thrown out by his wife). To support herself and her son, Keke took on any menial job available – mainly housework, sewing and laundering. Often, to help provide extra income, she would sleep with her employers.
Keke often worked in the houses of rich Jewish traders in Gori, and sometimes took her son along. He was said to have been a bright child and he amused some of the householders, including David Pismamedov who encouraged the young Stalin to study, and gave him money and books to read.
His mother's ambition was for Joseph to become a priest and she somehow accumulated enough money for his education, perhaps with Pismamedov's help. In 1888 she was able to enroll Soso into the Gori Church School and, later, with his mother's encouragement, he obtained a scholarship to the Tiflis Theological Seminary, a Russian Orthodox institution which he attended from the age of sixteen.
Later in life, when Stalin achieved prominence in the communist regime, he installed his mother in a palace in the Caucasus, formerly used by the tsar's viceroy. There she is said to have occupied only one tiny room from where she wrote frequent letters (in Georgian – she never managed to learn Russian) to her son and daughter-in-law. These were reciprocated, although Stalin is believed not to have visited her until 1935, when she was very sick. N. Kipshidze, a doctor who treated Keke in her old age, recalled that Stalin asked his mother at this meeting: "Why did you beat me so hard?" "That's why you turned out so well", Keke answered. In return, his mother asked him: "Joseph--who exactly are you now?" "Remember the tsar? Well, I'm like a tsar", replied Stalin. "You'd have done better to have become a priest" was his mother's retort. She died on May 13, 1937.
