<Begin Segment 10>

PW: Tell me about the work and employment history that Bob went through when he came to Toronto.

SK: Well, he came here to really, no job, because we're supposed to be in Windsor. But my brother knows the Wakayama, the Wakayama in Japan people, and they were working, hard-working. And I think it was a Maple Leaf Mushroom farm, so my husband went there. Go to Queen Street, my brother, rent a upstair, and from the Queen to end of a line, I don't know where, but they came to pick up the, with a truck, I think, and they went to Maple Leaf. You can't see, whereas that the Maple Leaf is just there now. [Laughs] That time, my gosh, goes on the bus, "Where is it? Where is it?" Don't know where to look. And he was working, and after he had the cleaning job, so he went in the cleaner. And the meantime, I think JCCA, and he involved in that. And at that time, Consul Endo was here and heard Bob's speech. And where, and I think he asked, I think, where he's working. "Cleaners." So, "Quit that job and come to work in the office." So he started to work in the consul's, and that consul's office became the consul-general.

PW: And where did Bob learn his Japanese that he was so good in reading and writing and all that?

SK: Cumberland, and of course, he study really himself. And teacher was Aoki-sensei, Aoki Masao. He was very good; lots of Cumberland people speak Japanese: the Sora family and who else was there? I don't know the Cumberland, so I can't tell exactly, but... [laughs]

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2005 Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre and Densho. All Rights Reserved.