| biography | Eiko Ogino (nee Maikawa) was born in 1909 in Vancouver, BC. Her parents, Sannosuke Maikawa and Uta Bando, started a restaurant called 'Maruman' located on the 200 block of Powell Street in Vancouver, BC. Eiko was born in the back of the restaurant by a midwife.
Sannosuke avoided the conscription for the war with Russia in 1904, escaping on a freighter that travelled around to exotic places like Peru. He also worked in San Francisco on a railway gang; sleeping in box cars. Eventually he wrote to his brother, Tomekichi Maikawa, who was in Vancouver and arranged for a ticket, arriving in Vancouver on the Chicago Maru at age 20. He went to Prince Rupert to work in the sawmills and lost two fingers there. He married Uta around 1907 and soon afterwards started up the restaurant on Powell Street in Vancouver, BC. Eventually they built a large rooming house, typical of the time, on Dundas Street, where they rented out apartments. The family quarters were in the back of the house.
Around 1916, Sannosuke borrowed money from his brother Tomekichi and started up the Maikawa Fish store on Powell Street in Vancouver, BC. Sannosuke and Uta had five children, Sadao, Eiko, Yoshiko, Fujiko and Tomiko.
Eiko later went on to marry Kino Ogino in 1927 and they had four children, of which only a son, Eugene (Saburo) Ogino survived. They lived at 422 Cordova Street while Kino worked in the Maikawa fish market between working at the sawmills. Eiko helped with the book keeping of the store. The Ogino's opened a restaurant in 1933 and then took over the Fuji Chop Suey restaurant in 1938.
At evacuation, Kino Ogino was sent to Lempriere road camp in the Yellowhead highway project, was the boss of the cook house. He eventually got work on the CPR and moved to Revelstoke.
Eugene married Naomi Sakamoto; sister of Minnie Hattori (nee Sakamoto). |