| Zelda La Grange | |
|---|---|
| Born | 29 October 1970 Pretoria, South Africa |
| Occupation | Personal Assistant |
| Nationality | South African |
Zelda La Grange was born in Pretoria, South Africa on October 29, 1970. From 1994 until 1996, she served as a typist for Mary Mxadana, the private secretary to Nelson Mandela, the newly elected post-Apartheid President of South Africa. In 1996, she was promoted to assistant private secretary, and in 1999 she was again promoted to become private secretary to the Office of the President. Later in 1999, after Mandela left office, she was appointed as the executive personal assistant and spokesperson for the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg.
Her father was a South African Breweries executive who later ran his own butchery; her mother was a teacher. They voted reflexively for the ruling National Party, apartheid's inventors, and on Sundays they attended religious services at the local Dutch Reformed Church, after which they swam in the family pool.
Zelda has been his secretary, butler, aide-de-camp, spokesperson, travelling companion, confidante and - as she put it, and he agrees - honorary granddaughter, growing ever closer to him from the day she began work as an anonymous typist in the presidential office in 1994.