в равные четверти как шахматную доску
Just as a non-grammatical comment: "divided into equal quarters like a chessboard" fails metaphorically, in my opinion -- because you're talking about a linear progression of her life from birth to death, and if one considers the linear progress of a chess pawn across the board from one side to another, there are eight ranks/rows, not four. Of course, you can divide the 8x8 chessboard into four quadrants of 4x4, or for that matter, four 8x2 quarters, but neither of those really relates to how a chess game progresses.

As an alternative, I would suggest a comparison to the four seasons of the year, or the four 15-minutes quarters on a clock face.

And speaking of clocks and quarters, you could also compare her life to a game of basketball (or American-style football!).

Or, hmmmm... hockey games are divided into THREE "periods," rather than four quarters. So if you rewrite the story to have her get married at 22 and die at 33, you can compare her life to a hockey game, which is very Russian... (В чём жизнь похожа на хоккейный матч? Трусам не рекомендуется играть!) Plus, 33 years also gives you some "Jesus symbolism."