| biography | Mrs. Fumiko (Saito) Ezaki was born in 1917 at Eburn, Sea Island (now Richmond). Her family moved to Powell Street [ca.1919] and their father and mother opened their first tailor shop, "K. Saito Tailor" at 578 Powell Street. The business moved to 543 Hastings [ca.1928] for a few years, then to 398 Heatley Street. They opened Quick cleaners at 818 Smythe Street in 1931 which flourished until 1942. And at the same time moved the tailor shop to 397 Powell Street in 1933. The three older Saito girls worked at both shops. Upon being interned during the war,the Saito family were the second to last to evacuate to Slocan in October of 1942. After the first week of tents collapsing because of heavy snow in a record breaking cold winter, they moved to Lemon Creek to live in a house with four other families. There she met her husband Zenkei Ezaki, who was a Nichiren Buddhist missionary and married in Lemon Creek on June 18, 1943. He was ordained in Japan and taught in Vancouver and Toronto. Their first child Vernon was born March 26, 1944 and second child Nanae on Nov 26, 1945. Fumiko taught school in Lemon Creek for 2 months until she went to Vernon to pick apples.
Many photographs in the collection were taken by her husband Reverend Zenkei Ezaki who was a recreational photographer. Zenkei was sent to a labour camp at Decoigne, Alberta, during the war (1942) before being sent to Lemon Creek with his wife. Zenkei, a Japanese National and a Buddhist Priest was repatriated to Japan in 1946 on his own, while Fumiko and her children joined the Saito family in Toronto in 1946. She worked as a sewing machine operator until 1949 when she could join her husband in Kyushu Japan. She worked as a secretary in the Shiriro Trading company in Fukuoka city then the NCO club until 1957. The Ezaki's subsequently returned to Toronto in 1957, she worked as a clerk typist for the Ontario government. Canada. Zenkei passed away in 1977, and Fumiko returned to Vancouver in 1980 working part time doing office work until retirement in 1990. |