During two wars, although enemy plowed the villages, rummaged all day and night, her family remained strong, held on to the land and the village, followed to the revolution. Night after night, mother Thu and her husband husked, pounded rice to contribute for feeding the troops and protected five underground hideouts in this garden.
Beside growing rice, sweet potato, cassava… mother Thu kept several cows. Every day, to communicate with comrades in the underground hideouts, she grazed cow near the bamboo in the garden, but the enemy did not know. In the time when the revolutionary movement still operated strong, in the years from the 1955s through to the 1963s, she agreed with the comrades that she would lighted on the oil-lamp on the ancestral altar if there was not enemy and she would turn off the lamp if there was enemy. At night when the guerrillas attacked the enemy’s military post, she cooked a big rice cooker to service to the guerrillas. The poet, Senior Lieutenant Colonel Do Nhu Thuan had an immortal poem about the Mother’s rice cooker, in which there are sentences:
“The rice cooker of mother Thu is higher than the legend
The one-life story of our fatherland”.
Ending the French resistance war, coming to the resistance war against America, the land of Dien Ban, Quang Nam dragged fire and sword, the heels of enemy trampled every corner of roads. Her heart was sore when she had witnessed the scenes of burning houses of invaders, ravaging the villages, the hatred to enemy in her heart was as the burning fire and that fire was transmitted to her children. During the time in against enemies of the nation, her son joined the army in turn. Four of her sons became the soldiers of National Defense Army and Liberation Army; four other of her sons were guerrillas and the other was a Saigon commando.
Day by day, mother Thu kept the revolution comrades in secret and waited for the news of her son. She carried in womb then “she laid in the wet place and intended the dry place for her child”, brought up one daughter and eleven sons. Her heart was so sorrowful when she heard one of her sons died. That was in 1948, three of her sons: Le Tu Xien, Le Tu Han Anh, Le Tu Han Em sacrificed consecutively. When the pain was not over, in 1954 Le Tu Lem also sacrificed heroically.
In the resistance war against America, five other of her beloved sons also choose the way like their brothers, joining the revolution. They were Le Tu Nu, Le Tu Muoi, Le Tu Trinh, Le Tu Thinh but no one came back with her. Mother Thu heart-breakingly cried for them til the last tear. The soldier of Saigon commandos Le Tu Chuyen, the last hope among her sons gone away, laid down his life for our mother land in April 30th, 1975 - the day when the South of Vietnam was liberated completely.
Every day when mother Thu was alive in the old house, she still quietly sat on the bed and looking far away. Her eyes grew dim in tears in pain of losing and missing her child deeply following dates and months. Mother Thu was the embodiment of the utmost pain and the magic endurance. Her weak body had borne the prolonged pain, because seven of her sons who laid down their life for country were not married. It was mean that no one to worship, take care their graves. There were six person interred in the Dien Ban Martyrs Cemetery, two person were interred in the Ho Chi Minh City Martyrs Cemetery. But there was a person who still did not know where was located. That was the harassing pain which penetrating in her heart. Until the day mother Thu had died nearly 2 years, his remains was found and brought back to bury in the Dien Ban martyrs cemetery.
Mother Thu was awarded the title of Vietnam Heroic Mother by State in December 17th,1994. On Friday December 10th, 2010, mother Thu died at the age of 106 year sold. On that day, the weather was in golden light and little cold .. She died but in Vietnamese hearts, she is still the immortal symbol. In 2011, her house was recognized as a Provincial Historic Site by the Quang Nam Provincial People's Committee and here, her youngest grandchildren is on behalf of the family, administrating homes, gardens and worshiping... every day.