Her birth was not recorded but according to the stories she told us, she was already affianced when the town of Modakeke was overthrown by the Ifes. From history books, that happened in 1901. My father was the last of her five children. No one of us who were her grand children had ever seen her with black hairs. She died in 1980 and her age was estimated at 124years.

Although she became and was baptized in the early 60s, she never ceased to tell us strange and pathetic stories of her former life as a pagan and she had relics of that to show us. She was called 'Alaba' a cultural name for the second child following a set of twin. 'Idowu' is the one following the twins.

Story Teller

She was a quintessential story teller, singer and dancer. We loved to gather around her anytime she was less busy and she would tell us stories and teach us Yoruba cultural songs and dances. Her favorite was how our great ancestor, a man called Eewumi migrated from Tapa land in the North Central Nigeria, the present Niger State to the old Oyo empire in the west. Then she would follow up with eulogies of the great men and women in our ancestral line. She was the reason behind my great love for Yoruba culture. Occasionally my father would join us and beat drums to accompany the folklores she sang. Other stories she told us were also full of traditional knowledge. Through her I knew many of the myths behind the various norms held sacrosanct among the Yorubas. She told us of her single handed struggles to train all her five children after my grandfather died prematurely.

Mama also had stories of many inter-tribal wars and she told us how she watched as able men were conscripted to go fight the world war. The funniest part of these war stories was her demonstration of the military parade, and she would take time to don her special war costume when she got to this part of the story. Mama was a good actress.

Mediator

As my father ruled his large polygamous family authoritatively, Mama was the mediator we all had in the house then. If anyone offended my father, or if any of us children offended his/her mother, we would run to mama and she would promptly stand in the gap. Mama was the only one who could confront my father in his anger and get him to listen to her. She would do anything to calm down an angry person including; singing, dancing and even crying if she thought that would give her attention.

Comedian

Any time she noticed that there was tension in the house,

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