Couplet in Mourning for Madam Ge, Mother of Cai Hesen and Cai Chang[1]

(1943)

An elderly woman, yet a new model of womanhood;
Her son a heroic martyr, her daughter a heroine.

[1] Madam Ge Jianhao was the mother of Cai Hesen and Cai Chang, and the mother-in-law of Xiang Jingyu. Cai Hesen (1895–1931), a native of Yongfeng, Xiangxiang, Hunan (now part of Shuangfeng County). In his early years, he was a schoolmate of Mao Zedong at the Hunan First Normal School and together they initiated the Xinmin Institute. In 1919, he went to France on a work-study program and returned to China in 1921. He served as head of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee and as a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. He died a martyr in Guangzhou in 1931. Cai Chang (1900–1990), a native of Yongfeng, Xiangxiang, Hunan (now part of Shuangfeng County). Younger sister of Cai Hesen, a member of the Xinmin Institute, she went to France on a work-study program in 1919, joined the Chinese Socialist Youth League in 1922, and transferred to the Communist Party of China in 1923. In 1924, she went to study at the Eastern University in Moscow and returned to China in 1925. She served as secretary of the Women’s Movement Committee of the CPC Central Committee, chairwoman of the All-China Women’s Federation, and vice chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, among other posts. She passed away in Beijing in September 1990.