Circle of Love

Growing up in Cincinnati, Michael Caligaris remembers his late grandmother, Yaeko “Lillian” Hall, being a larger-than-life presence. 

The 13th of 18 siblings, she was born in Hawaii to Japanese immigrants who owned a vegetable farm on Maui. She met Caligaris’ grandfather at a Navy USO dance, married him and moved to Ohio, where she worked as a seamstress and became the matriarch of a large, extended family.

“Her stories, kindness and determination are what shaped me from an early age, and she continues to inform my life as husband, father, and even as a litigator,” says Caligaris, who practices general litigation at Reminger in his hometown. “The older I’ve become, the more my gratitude and love grows for this woman.”

One day, Hall found a ring made of fool’s gold in her grandson’s room. He had worn it for years before stashing it in a drawer—“the middle-school version of me would have told you my finger was worth millions,” he says—and she slipped it onto her own finger. There it stayed for the rest of her life.

When Hall passed away in 2018, she willed the ring back to her grandson. Now, he wears it on a gold chain, underneath his suit.

“It is my good luck charm in a sense,” Caligaris says. “I don’t think I’ve ever stepped into a courthouse without it.”