She lived a stout and upright life as the mother and grandmother of great revolutionaries.

One spring day of 1911 Kim Hyong Jik, an indomitable revolutionary fighter, entered the Sungsil Middle School.

It was difficult for the poor Mangyongdae family, which could hardly afford enough uncleaned sorghum gruel, to send its son to the middle school.

His father Kim Po Hyon and his mother Ri Po Ik did farming day and night to make the monthly tuition fee for him.

She let her son, whom she had brought up with so much effort, struggle to win back the country ruined by the Japanese imperialists without living together.

After his son passed away while waging the revolutionary activities for the independence of the country, she said to President Kim Il Sung as follows:

"You will have to take over the burden your father was carrying now. You must pick up the cause where he left off and win back the country, come what may. You may have no chance to take care of me or your mother, as is your filial duty, but you must give yourself heart and soul to the cause of Korea's independence."

The President was deeply moved and encouraged by her words.

Though she would like to live together with her sturdy sons and grandsons under the same roof in the ruined country, she made no scruple to send out even her young grandson for the revolution.

The Japanese imperialists resorted to every conceivable means to make the President "submit" through her during the anti-Japanese armed struggle, but to no avail.

It was her lofty spiritual world that a family cannot exist without the motherland and to devote all to the motherland is precisely the way for the parents.

Although she was grandmother to the head of a state after the liberation of the country, she did not want luxury bestowed on her and led a life as plain, ordinary people.

Indeed, the whole life of Ri Po Ik is an extremely noble one shining with love of the country and people.