Her father worked as a clerk in an Egyptian telephone company and died early, leaving her mother widowed and having to raise Fathia single-handed.

[4] After completing her secondary education, where she studied French,[5] she worked as a teacher at her school in Zeitoun, Notre Dame des Apôtres.

Her mother was reluctant to see another of her children marry a foreigner and quit the country, as Fathia's brother had left Egypt with his English wife.

[6] Fathia Nkrumah was the mother of three young children when her husband was overthrown in Ghana's first successful military coup d'état on 24 February 1966.

[2] Her memorial mass was held in the Coptic Orthodox Cathedral Church in Cairo by Pope Shenouda III on 1 June 2007.