[1] Victoria Ama Zormelo (affectionately called "Antima"), an Ewe, was the second daughter of Godfred Nyavor Zormelo, a former North German Mission employee and a fishing business proprietor from Tegbi, in the Volta Region and Emilia Tornyewonya Ablawo Tamakloe, a bread and cake seller.
[1][2] She started her elementary education at the local African Methodist Episcopal Zion School.
After completing, she gained employment with the District Commissioner in 1927 and was the only woman to pass the Civil Service Entrance Examination in May 1927.
She gave up her job upon marriage to a Mr Godfred Gorleku of Ada Foah, but was left widowed and pregnant within a year.
Having lost her husband when five months pregnant, she had no choice but to return to her family at Keta in the Volta Region, where she gave birth to her first child Alberta Olivia Gorleku.