MEREDITH --- Kazuko Okubo, 82, passed away peacefully at home in Meredith, New Hampshire on Sunday, October 4, 2026.
Kazuko was born April 22, 1944 in Osaka, Japan. She was raised by her mother, Yumi, and with her older sister, Hiromi. She started her career at the age of 20 while in her second year of university, a small dress shop in Japan. She married at the age of 26 and traveled with her husband to the US, while pregnant with her first child.
While in the US, she worked a variety of jobs often multiple at a time, while raising two children on her own. She maintained her entrepreneurial spirit and started a variety of businesses including restaurants and shops. Kazuko was a lifelong learner, even returning to school in her seventies at Plymouth State University. A highlight of which was studying abroad in Japan, where she focused on ceramics. She was an award-winning artist and authored two books about her life “Japanese Wife” first published in 2010 and “Japanese Mother” in 2013.
She is survived by her son Edward Megarry and his wife Marcy; her daughter Aurelia Moran and her partner Sean; three grandchildren, Rebecca, Richard, and William; two great-grandchildren: Ameliya and Carter; and many friends she made along the way.
There will be no calling hours.
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests that memorial donations in Kazuko’s name be made to the Plymouth Regional Senior Center, P. O. Box 478, Plymouth, NH 03264.
Wilkinson-Beane-Simoneau-Paquette Funeral Home & Cremation Services/603Cremations.com, 164 Pleasant St., Laconia, NH, 03246, is assisting the family with arrangements. For more information and to view an online memorial, please visit wilkinsonbeane.com.