| biography | Hisashi Yano was born on March 3, 1910 in Port Moody, BC to parents Kiyukichi and Takako. He was seven years old when he was orphaned in 1917. His father had died when he was three and his mother died during the Spanish Flu outbreak in 1917. Hisashi's two brothers, Eichi and Takashi Yano, and his sister, Yaeko, were sent to live with relatives in Japan, but somehow Hisashi was overlooked and remained in Canada. He was cared for by a man named Imamura. As a result, he was known as Hisashi Imamura from the time he went to Central School in Vancouver and Port Moody Public School in Port Moody BC . Hisashi kept his Imamura last name until he left BC Pulp and Paper Mill in Woodfibre, BC in 1942.
During the forced removal of Japanese Canadians during World War II, Hisashi was sent by the BC Security Commission to work at the Griffins Lake Road Camp in 1942. There, Hisashi reverted back to his birth name, Yano. Later, he took the name Roy and became known as Roy Hisashi Yano.
Hisashi remained at Griffin Lake until 1943 where he left to work on sugar beet farms near Lethbridge, Alberta. He worked on the Magus farm and the Miskulin farm. There, he met his wife Lillie Reiko Hamaguchi, and the two were soon married. They had two daughters, Lillian Michiko, born July 5, 1945 and Marion Kiyoko, born December 3, 1946. The family moved to Toronto, Ontario in December, 1951, where they lived in three locations - an upstairs flat on Baine Avenue, a two room apartment behind a dry cleaning store on Bloor Street West (from 1952-1960) and finally a house behind a variety store on Gladstone Avenue, which Hisashi owned from 1960 until his death in 1980. |