matriarch

They started with Italian grandmothers, but Scarvella soon realized it was about all matriarchs, whom he refers to as the “original couriers” of a culture’s cuisine.

Her name is Rose Marie Harris, my mother, who’s passed on, and she is the queen and matriarch of our family.

A silver-haired matriarch coolly picks off those who would steal her land from an upstairs window with a rifle almost as big as she is.

“We decided to track all the other characters and how their lives would change without the matriarch in the middle,” Caplan explains.

In a statement, Ms Bednarczyk, who was engaged to her long-term partner, was described by her relatives as "the matriarch of the family".