A Group Portrait of Girls' First Communion at Sacred Heart School; Greenwood, BC

From this item, LOI has digitized a textual record.

The image shows roughly three rows of girls and women (the youngest being in the bottom row and the oldest in the back row). Almost all of them wear veils and hold bouquets of flowers. Included in the picture are a man and two boys wearing Catholic attire. They all pose outdoors before the entrance of a wood building. In the second row from left to right they are Harry Matsubara, unidentified, Sumi Tanaka (nee Sasaki), Kathleen Okawa, unidentified,* Mytssu Fugeta (nee Sasaki) and identified (the two unidentifieds in this row are twins and therefore are believed to be the Murao twins). In the third row from left to right are unidentified, Shiz Nishimura, Fumi Nakatsu, unidentified, unidentified, Benny Maeda, Danny Hashimoto. And the father standing at the back is Father Robert O'Farrell.

Mytssu Sasaki was born on September 9, 1919 on Powell Street in Vancouver, BC. Mytssu's father, Ichiji Sasaki, built one of the biggest bathhouses, the Matsuno-yu at 318 Powell Street in July 1916. It cost $4,600 to build and was elaborate and popular. From 1917-24, he operated the Cordova rooms at 52 Cordova Street and the Union Rooms at 410 Union Street. Then in 1924, he started the Maruichi Restaurant (meshiya) on the 300 block of Powell Street with his wife, Sugae. It mostly served single men who were fishermen and loggers. In 1928, he started the Ichiriki restaurant on Cordova and Dunlevy Streets catering to a higher class clientele. During that time, he brought the first sushi chef from Japan, Mr K Morita. The Sasaki family lived in the three story home that housed the restaurant.

The digital copies of the records were acquired by the Landscapes of Injustice Research Collective between 2014 and 2018.

This record was digitized in full.