Great Grandma ひいおばあちゃん

Japanese follows English.　英語の後に日本語が続きます。

One has four great grandmothers and four great grandfathers. I do, too, but I've never met any of them. Every one of them had died before I was born. However, I've often heard about one of them, that is, the mother of my maternal grandma. I don't know her name because everyone calls her just "Great Grandma" with some mixed feelings....

The great grandma (I will call her "Jane" for the sake of convenience) is often talked about because of her "bold" decision to marry a Japanese man who, at the time, worked in Sao Paolo, who'd divorced and had several kids from a previous marriage, and who she'd never met other than on a photo given to her in an arranged marriage. Yes, that is the father of my maternal grandma.  

I can't imagine how she decided to marry such a guy living in a place from which it was almost impossible to come back to her home country at that time, but I'm pretty sure that she had no other choices. 

The other thing which makes Jane so popular (?) is that she didn't cook almost at all, which was and still is unusual for Japanese women. She had maids in Sao Paolo but not after coming back to Japan, so she had her daughter(s) cook other than when she made for dinner dozens of "ohagi" or Japanese sweet rice balls made of azuki red beans and mochi rice cakes, her favorite sweet.

I haven't heard anything good about Jane, but I sometimes remember her and want to ask her if everything said about her is true.   

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人には曾祖父、曾祖母がそれぞれ４人ずついますが、家（うち）で話題になるのは母の母方の曾祖母だけです。尊敬されているのかバカにされているのかが微妙な曾祖母です。

というのもこの曾祖母の相手（つまり曾祖父）は当時サンパウロ在住のバツイチ子持ち、かつ、それまで一度も会ったことのない人だったからです。曾祖母は写真だけを見て太平洋を渡ったのです。

幸いその後成功し、帰国したのですが、曾祖母はほとんど家事はせず、たまに作る夕食はおはぎのみだけだったとのこと。いい話は聞いたことがありません。ただ時々なぜかこの曾祖母を思い出し、この噂の真偽を確かめたいと思ってしまうのです。

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