Essondale patient file for Shigematsu Hikida

Warning

The LOI Research Team has flagged this record for containing sensitive information. This record contains the following sensitivities:

  • Details or graphic images of serious illness (mental or physical) or mortality of identifiable individual(s).
  • Could cause undue or disproportionate dishonour / embarrassment to self or family.

Essondale patient file for Shigematsu Hikida

Description

Title Proper 93-5683 BOX 0301 FILE 19254
Date(s) 1937
General material designation
This file contains a textual record.
Scope and content
File contains records from three separate admissions; 1937, 1938, 1941. Shigematsu Hikida died on 23 July 1942 at Essondale of tuberculosis, at the age of 30. His mental health diagnoses were dementia praecox and schizophrenia. He was born in British Columbia. He lived in Steveston at Winch Cannery and worked as a fisherman. A letter from his brother written in May 1937 requested that Shigematsu be permitted to leave the hospital to attend celebrations surrounding the royal visit. File contains a telegram from Essondale notifying family of his death and advising them to make funeral arrangements; they responded that they were unable to return home to make funeral arrangements and requested that the hospital send the ashes to them in Picture Butte, Alberta. File contains correspondence with British Columbia Security Commission regarding registration. The final document is a letter written 31 July 1942 from Office Manager M.L. Brown to medical superintendent E.J. Ryan indicating that “there was no registration made of Japanese inmates of Mental Hospitals or Penitentiaries at the time the R.C.M. Police made their National Registration.”
Name of creator
British Columbia. Mental Health Services created this archive which were transferred to the BC Archives from 1987 to 2000.
Immediate source of acquisition
The digital copies of the records were acquired by the Landscapes of Injustice Research Collective between 2014 and 2018.
This record was digitized selectively.

Metadata

Title

Essondale patient file for Shigematsu Hikida
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Terminology

Readers of these historical materials will encounter derogatory references to Japanese Canadians and euphemisms used to obscure the intent and impacts of the internment and dispossession. While these are important realities of the history, the Landscapes of Injustice Research Collective urges users to carefully consider their own terminological choices in writing and speaking about this topic today as we confront past injustice. See our statement on terminology, and related sources here.