In 1985, Xu Deheng, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China, wrote a praise speech of "Mother's Ceremony is Style, Bright Festival and High Wind", and inscribed a poem: "Haojie Cai Family, Ten Thousand Children Sing; Can be a praise for the mother of martyrs, study abroad to create a precedent." It only takes four lines of poetry to summarize Ge Jianhao's magnificent life.
"Women are weak, mothers are just" Because of some of her husband's behaviors that can be called "inhumane", Ge Jianhao himself is a woman who is both a mother and a father, and pulls the child up alone with painstaking efforts.
Not only that, but she is also passionate about women's education and has twice hosted girls' schools. When the revolutionary wave struck, he vigorously supported his children to devote themselves to the revolutionary cause, and he also risked his life to participate in revolutionary activities in the terrorist atmosphere of the reactionaries' brutal suppression of the people.
Later, it fought for the equal rights of the majority of female compatriots, and created a precedent for the Constitution to include "equal rights for men and women". Later generations even honored her as the "mother of the revolution"!
So what was the life of such a legendary mother?
Married
In 1865, Ge Jianhao was born in Heye Guilintang, Shuangfeng County, Hunan. Ge Jianhao has been very intelligent since he was a child, and his understanding is also very high, and he has been reading and writing at home with his brother at the age of five or six. When he reached the age of sixteen, he married into the Cai family in Yongfeng on the orders of his parents.
At this time, the Cai family was no longer in glory, and her husband Cai Rongfeng could only rely on this layer of marriage to find a small clerk in Shanghai, and he actually commanded Ge Jianhao at home.
Of course, Ge Jianhao couldn't stand this anger, so he turned around and went back to his hometown, where he heard that Qiu Jin, the "hero of the towel" who could write and fight, lived not far from him, so he went to visit.
After a long period of contact with Qiu Jin, Ge Jianhao came into contact with a new idea- the rudiments of feminism. He praised Qiu Jin's act of founding a girls' school, and often told his children the story of Qiu Jin, hoping that they could follow Qiu Jin's example and be a useful person to society.
Unfortunately, the year after Ge Jianhao met Qiu Jin, Qiu Jin was killed in Shaoxing, Zhejiang, which made Ge Jianhao's family very sad.
Learning is not related to age
At that time, many schools were set up in Changsha, and Ge Jianhao wanted to send his three children to school there, but at this time, there was not much money in the family, and Ge Jianhao took out the dowry he had hidden for decades.
Cai Hesen, who later returned from vacation, told Ge Jianhao that there was a female teacher training center in Changsha that specialized in training female education teachers. Ge Jianhao knew that if he could get an education teacher, he would be able to do more things in education in the future, so he set off for Changsha soon after.
When she arrived at the school, the teachers at the school saw that she was older (48 years old) and did not let her sign up. Ge Jianhao was angry in his heart, and asked his son to write a paper letter and submit it to the county court, and the county official felt that she was very courageous and had the heart to study, so he let the school admit it.
Ge Jianhao is also very hard at school, often studying for several hours after the school bedtime bell rings before going to sleep.
Start a school
After the Girls' Teachers' Training Institute had obtained educational teachers, Ge Jianhao wanted to create a girls' school in Yongfeng Town.
After consulting with the county government, he agreed with Ge Jianhao's idea, because there was already a girls' school in the county at that time, and the county government named the girls' school founded by Ge Jianhao as the "Second Girls' School", with Ge Jianhao as the principal.
In school, Ge Jianhao attaches great importance to the idea of "equality between men and women", hoping that women can achieve the same status as men. He often shared with his students the new ideas he had acquired in school, and held rallies to talk about national events and social situations and to discuss women's liberation.
After many rallies, many students broke through the feudal thinking and correctly realized the harm of foot binding and braiding. However, these acts of Ge Jianhao touched the interests of the feudal forces, and various means were used to force Ge Jianhao's school to temporarily suspend.
The prototype of the revolution
In 1917, after graduating, Cai he and Sen told Ge Jianhao that he wanted to stay in Changsha and continue to explore the truth with his classmates, and although life at home was already difficult, she was very much in favor of her son's decision.
He came to Changsha with several other children and rented the Liu family's terrace, which later became a place where Cai he sen and Wei Ren and others often met.
While Cai and Sen were discussing, Ge Jianhao sat next to them and listened quietly, occasionally participating in the discussion. Later, when the great man's mother came to Changsha for treatment, she lived in Ge Jianhao's house, and Ge Jianhao took special care of her, which made the great man moved.
In 1919, Cai Hesen, who was going to study in France, returned home, hoping that his mother and they could also go together, learn advanced ideas in France, and then return to contribute to the motherland.
Ge Jianhao was very eager for new ideas, but due to financial difficulties, Ge Jianhao raised funds for a while before going to France in the autumn.
Work-study
When he first arrived in France, Ge Jianhao was not discouraged in the face of the unknown French language. Although there is no foundation in foreign languages, and "Chinese grammar" will have an impact to a certain extent, Ge Jianhao relies on his excellent perseverance, learning word by word, and going to bed late and getting up early every day to study hard.
At that time, due to the influence of the "May Fourth Movement", the work-study movement among international students in France reached a climax. Ge Jianhao also took time to sell her embroidery to the French, because French women were very fond of Ge Jianhao's exquisite embroidery, so that she could sell dozens or even hundreds of francs in one piece of embroidery.
Ge Jianhao used the money he earned, in addition to his own and children's expenses, to help other students studying in France. At the same time, she also supported her children's free love, so that Cai hesen and Xiang Jianyu, Cai Chang and Li Fuchun formed a beautiful marriage.
Do not forget the revolutionary cause in your heart
In 1922, Cai Hesen and Xiang Jianyu returned to China and participated in the leadership of the CPC Central Committee. The following year, after Cai Chang gave birth to a child in France, Ge Jianhao's daily workload doubled, but in the end she persisted.
In the autumn, he returned to China with his young granddaughter Li Tete, while Cai Chang and his wife were sent to the Soviet Union to study.
After returning to Changsha, Ge Jianhao took care of his grandchildren while devoting himself to the women's liberation movement in Hunan.
Through her unremitting efforts, the Hunan Provincial Constitutional Committee finally agreed to include the following provision in the Constitution of Hunan Province: "The people are legally equal to both men and women, and men and women over the age of twenty-one have the right to vote and to be elected, and enjoy the right to education at all levels above compulsory education." It has created a precedent for the Constitution to include "equal rights for men and women".
In 1925, Ge Jianhao founded another girls' school in Yanzimiao in Changsha, because of its close relationship with the Communist Party, it secretly became a meeting place for revolutionaries, and later because of the exposure of his identity, the school was later suspended.
After the defeat of the first civil revolutionary war, Ge Jianhao traveled to many cities to cover for his children's revolution, until 1928, when Cai Luxian and Xiang Died to the police, Cai he sen and Cai Chang discussed and sent her back to Yongfeng to live a stable life.
In 1931, Cai he and Sen died heroically in Guangzhou, and their children were afraid that she would be too sad to hide from her.
Before his death, Ge Jianhao still did not know that his son had died, and the eldest daughter wrote to them: "Mothers can no longer see the success of their careers. But the revolution will triumph! On March 16, 1943, Ge Jianhao died of illness in Yongfeng Shibanchong at the age of 78.
brief summary:
There is no denying that mothers have always played a very important role in our lives. And maternal love is the mother's holiest, most selfless, greatest love for us, it is like a clear spring that has been silently nourishing us, so that we are in it without knowing it.
We were pampered by our mothers from childhood to adulthood, and we were accustomed to our mother's dedication to us, and sometimes even felt that we deserved it, but it wasn't until her sideburns were white that we realized that she was old, and we never returned anything to her.
Take advantage of the fact that there is still time, when the mother's hair is not yet completely white, accompany her more, talk to her more, companionship is the best love.