text: Yaeko Sakano , more often referred as Yaeko Ueno, was an unmarried partner to Hidesaburō Ueno for about 10 years until his death in 1925. Hachikō was reported to have shown great happiness and affection toward her whenever she came to visit him. Yaeko died on 30 April 1961 at the age of 76 and despite her request to her family members to be buried with her late partner, she was buried at a temple in Taitō, further away from Ueno's grave. Her record was later found by Sho Shiozawa, the professor of the University of Tokyo in 2013, who was also the president of the Japanese Society of Irrigation, Drainage and Rural Engineering, which manages Ueno's grave at Aoyama Cemetery.
  On November 10, 2013, which marked the 90th anniversary of the Birth of Hachikō, Sho Shiozawa and Keita Matsui, a curator of the Shibuya Folk and Literary Shirane Memorial Museum, felt the need that Yaeko be buried together with Ueno and Hachikō. Shiozawa also went on as one of the organizers involved with the creation of bronze statue of Hachikō and Ueno which was later unveiled on the grounds of the University of Tokyo on the 80th anniversary of Hachikō's death on March 9, 2015. Although it had the consent of both the Ueno and Sakano families, the process took two years due to regulations and bureaucracy.
  Reunion of Hachikō's family
  On 19 May 2016, during a ceremony at the Aoyama Cemetery attended by members of the Ueno and Sakano families, some of the ashes of Yaeko Sakano were buried with Ueno and Hachikō. Her name and the date of her death were inscribed on the side of Ueno's tombstone, thus reuniting Hachikō's family.