Kwak Nak-won

Kwak was born on 26 February 1859, in Changyon County, Hwanghae Province, Joseon.[3][4] Her bon-gwan is the Hyeonpung Gwak clan.[4] She was married to Kim Sun-yŏng.[4] At age seventeen,[5] she had her only child, Kim Chang-am, who would later be known by his art name Kim Ku.[3]

She came from a lower class and poorly educated farming family that experienced discrimination from the local elite.[4][5] She was determined to ensure her son would avoid a similar fate, and enrolled him in a local seodang to learn to read and write and prepare for the gwageo civil service examinations.[4]

In 1888, her husband suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed. Desperate to cure him, she sold off all of the family's belongings, including silverware, and left Kim Ku at a relative's house while she took her husband around the province in search of a doctor.[5]

After the 1896 Chihapo incident, in which Kim Ku murdered a Japanese man, Kim was eventually imprisoned in an Incheon prison.[4][5] Kwak went with her son and worked as a housemaid in Incheon,[5] providing occasion care for him in the form of meals and news from the outside world.[4][5] After Kim's escape and marriage in 1904, she reportedly made a point of consistently siding with her daughter-in-law whenever the couple argued.[5]

She also provided care for him at Seodaemun Prison after his 1911 arrest due to his activities in the New People's Association.[3][6]

In 1922, she left Korea to join her son in exile in Shanghai, and supported him while he worked at the Korean Provisional Government (KPG).[3][7][4][5] The KPG consistently struggled with its finances throughout its history, and its members similarly struggled.[5] Kwak and her family were no exception; after the unexpected early death of her daughter-in-law in January 1924, Kwak could not afford to properly care for her grandson Kim Shin, and so she temporarily placed him in an orphanage.[4] She was hardly able to afford two meals per day, and for one birthday she received just two strips of phoenix oolong for tea.[4] She and her two grandchildren returned to Korea in December 1925.[4][5] There, she saved money and sent it over to Kim and the KPG.[4]

In March 1934, she snuck past Japanese authorities and returned to China with her grandchildren.[4] Their second stay in China was no less difficult; the KPG had been on the run from Japanese authorities and moved from city to city around this time.[5] And after the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, their retreat intensified, as they followed the Kuomintang across China, eventually ending up in Chongqing.[5] In 1938, during this retreat, an ethnic Korean attempted to assassinate Kim in Changsha, in what became known as the Nammokcheong incident.[5] Kim was on the verge of death, but eventually recovered.[5] Upon his recovery, Kwak said she was confident that he would survive, and that the only pity was that the assassin was Korean.[5]

For her 80th birthday (Korean age reckoning), she famously demanded that they spend money not on presents for her, but on pistols for Korean revolutionary fighters.[7][8] Her son carried out her request and bought two pistols as well as fifty fountain pens to distribute amongst the independence movement to facilitate communication.[3][7][4]

Kwak's funeral. From the left is her youngest grandson Shin, eldest grandson In, son Kim Ku, and Kim Hong-seo (26 April 1939)

She died on 26 April 1936 at age 80[lower-alpha 1] in Chongqing, Republic of China from pharyngitis.[7][4] She died before ever seeing an independent Korea, which was liberated in 1945.[4]

Kim Ku consistently wrote extremely positively about her in his autobiography, the Baekbeom-ilji, even calling her the "mother of the nation" on several occasions.[5][lower-alpha 2]

In 1992, she was posthumously awarded the Order of Merit for National Foundation award from the South Korean government.[4][3] In 1999, she was reinterred at grave site No. 771 at the 2nd patriot branch of the Daejeon National Cemetery.[3]

She was married to Kim Sun-yŏng until his death in 1901.[10]

She was reportedly shorter than 150 cm (4 ft 11 in) tall.[5] She converted to Protestant Christianity around when her son converted in 1903.[4][6] She was reportedly devout, and calmed herself through difficult periods by praying and singing hymns.[4][6]

Through Kim Ku, she had two grandchildren who survived past childhood, Kim In and Kim Shin.[4][10] Through Kim Shin, she has descendants who lived in Shanghai as of 2005.[10]