Beauty at 87 - Mere Tivaknoa Rigamoto Solomone

Years later and I'm bringing my write-ups closer to home.

Meet my 87 year old grandmother, Mere Rigamoto Solomone. Born on the 17th of September 1930 to parents Amei and Rigamoto, Mere was the second eldest of nine siblings and attended a catholic primary school in Upu, Motusa on the island of Rotuma.

Leaving school at a very early age, she felt she had a responsibility to help her parents look after her family so she would tell me stories about she and her siblings would take baskets to the beach to catch small fish and muscels for dinner while early in the morning they would each take turns at the farm planting yams and taro to feed the family.

Fast forward a decade or two, she moved to Vatukoula and worked as a help for a European couple Mr. and Mrs. Thomas . Mr. Thomas was the Principal of a school in Vatukoula while Mrs. Thomas was a house-wife. My grandmother learnt a lot from Mrs. Thomas. She taught my grandmother the know-hows of pastries from scratch to decorating which my grandmother carried on doing even while we were growing up.

She was married to husband and my grandfather, Ieti Solomone. He was also Rotuman but was raised in Samoa. He moved to Fiji when he was in his early twenties and met her at a dance one Saturday night. The stories she would tell me about how they first met is one I find so romantic. I remember her telling me how my grandfather would show-off to her at the dance back in Vatukoula. He would ask to walk her back home after the dance. A year later, walking her back home lead to a proposal. Seven children and a happy marriage, they were both baptized into the Mormon church in the early 70's. Ieti passed on in the early nineties while Mere, strong and beautiful as ever, now lives at our family house in Nadera with her eldest grandson and his family.