Saimoto Family
Kunimatsu Saimoto [1890 – 1959]
Kiku Saimoto (nee Kubo) [1898 – 1961]
Hisao Saimoto [1928 – 2010]
Kunimatsu Saimoto was born on June 1, 1890, in Wakayama-ken, Japan. He left Japan for Canada on December 26, 1907, aboard the Tango-maru. He married Kiku (nee Kubo) in 1918 and had ten children: Jitsuo, Yukio, Nobuko, Fumio, Sueko, Hisao, Mikio, Taeko, Shigeo, and Sayoko.
Kunimatsu was a self-employed fisherman and then a fish-buying agent for the fish canneries. He was asked sometime in the early 1920s, or as early as 1915, to become an organizer for all the Japanese fishermen under contract to harvest their catch for Imperial Cannery at Steveston, BC. Eventually, he owned four fish-packing boats, which were leased to fishing crews that numbered 200 in peak season. The family was well-established.
By early 1942, the family was forcibly uprooted to Minto BC, a self-supporting camp authorized by the BC Security Commission. In Minto, Kunimatsu and his son Hisao ran logging crews and worked as labourers, cleaning brush, loading trucks, and slinging blocks of ice for an icehouse.
The family moved to Revelstoke to get a better education for the children in May 1945, also to be near to daughter Nobuko, who was in the New Denver Sanitorium. Hisao and Mikio went to Revelstoke High School from 1945 to 1949. Shigeru initially attended Selkirk School and transferred to Central School for Grades 7 and 8. They lived in a house owned by Alf Grauer on 4th Street, near Moss Street. The Grauers agreed to rent to Kunimatsu when they saw that he had bought war bonds. Kunimatsu later bought a house that was a block closer to town. From 1946 to 1948, for two summers, Kunimatsu organized a workforce for logging at Rogers sawmill located outside the National Park.
The Saimoto family moved back to Vancouver in 1949.
Kunimatsu Saimoto passed away on May 10, 1959, in Vancouver, at the age of 68. Kiku Saimoto (nee Kubo) passed away on March 13, 1961, in Vancouver, at the age of 62.
Hisao Saimoto, 1948.
Mikio Saimoto, 1948.