"Interest" found 38 records | Heritage Burnaby

Summary: This portion of the interview is about Toki Miyashita’s family’s internment during WWII, and her Oikawa grandparent’s immigration to BC and settlement on Lion and Don Islands at the mouth of the Fraser River. She describes how the family was moved to the internment camp “The Orchard” in New Denver,…

1 audio

Repository: City of Burnaby Archives

Summary: This portion of the interview is about Toki Miyashita’s family’s internment during WWII, and her Oikawa grandparent’s immigration to BC and settlement on Lion and Don Islands at the mouth of the Fraser River. She describes how the family was moved to the internment camp “The Orchard” in New Denver, but managed to find a place to live outside the camp where her grandmother grew a large garden from seeds brought in the seams of her clothing. She notes that the Lion Islands were named Oikawa-shima by the Japanese settlers.

Date Range: 1900-1946

Length: 00:07:05

Subjects: Wars - World War, 1939-1945; Persons - Japanese Canadians

Interviewer: Fowler, Rod

Interview Date: February 27, 1990

Scope and Content: Recording is of an interview with Toki Miyashita, conducted by Rod Fowler. Toki Miyashita was one of eleven participants interviewed as part of the SFU/Burnaby Centennial Committee's oral history series titled, "Voices of Burnaby". The interview is about Toki Miyashita’s family’s internment during WWII, her awakening interest in Japanese culture after the war, her subsequent interest in teaching others about Japanese crafts and arts, and becoming a helpful intermediary between Burnaby and visitors from Japan. The interview explores her interest in the Ainu of Japan and their possible link to the aboriginals of BC, her impressions of the Ainu carver Nuburi Toko, and her involvement in the events surrounding the creation of the sculpture “Playground of the Gods” for Burnaby Mountain. The interview also contains interesting details about the art of Japanese flower-arranging. To view “Narrow By” terms for each track expand this description and see “Notes”.

Biographical Notes: Toki Miyashita was born in Richmond B.C., ca. 1935, at the Nelson Brothers “fishery”, a second generation Canadian descended from the Oikawa family who settled on Don and Lion Islands (Oikawa-shima). In 1942 the Japanese Canadians in BC were forcibly moved from the coast and their belongings confiscated. Toki Miyashita, her parents, two brothers, and grandparents were first taken to Hastings Park where her father was separated from the family to work in road camps, and the rest of the family were interned in New Denver. Her resourceful grandmother moved the family to land outside the internment camp, growing a large garden from seeds brought with her. In 1946 the family moved to Kamloops and in 1958, after finishing high school, Toki Miyashita moved to Montreal to be with relatives and a small Japanese community. At this time she became interested in Japanese culture and took a Japanese language course at age 22. She learned about Japanese flower-arranging (Ikebana), paper folding (Origami), silk doll making (from a Russian Jew), and how to wear a kimono. She began demonstrating these arts in schools and to other groups, which she continued doing when she, her husband and two young children moved to Burnaby in 1969. Toki Miyashita has been called an unpaid “ambassador” of Japanese culture to the Lower Mainland. She has acted as liaison between Burnaby and her sister city Kushiro in Japan, which involved her in the creation of the Ainu sculpture “Playground of the Gods” on Burnaby Mountain for Burnaby’s Centennial. Toki Miyashita is a recognized Master in Ikebana Sogetsu, a school of flower-arranging, and has served on the board of the Vancouver Ikebana Association. She also served on Burnaby’s Family Court in the 1980s.

Total Tracks: 11

Total Length: 01:34:10

Interviewee Name: Miyashita, Toki

Interviewer Bio: Rod Fowler returned to university as a mature student in the 1980s after working about twenty years in the field of economics and computerization in business in England, Europe and Western Canada. He graduated with a BA from SFU in both History and Sociology in 1987, his MA degree in Geography in 1989, and his PhD in Cultural Geography at SFU. He taught courses in Geography, Sociology, History and Canadian Studies at several Lower Mainland colleges, before becoming a full time member of the Geography Department at Kwantlen University College.

Collection/Fonds: SFU/Burnaby Centennial Committee fonds

Series: Centennial Oral History project series

Transcript Available: Transcript available

Media Type: Sound Recording

Web Notes: Interviews were digitized in 2015 allowing them to be accessible on Heritage Burnaby. The digitization project was initiated by the Community Heritage Commission with support from City of Burnaby Council.

Audio Tracks

Track one of interview with Toki Miyashita

https://search.heritageburnaby.ca/media/hpo/_Data/_Archives_Oral_Histories/_Unrestricted/MSS187-017/MSS187-017_Track_1.mp3

Leila Orman subseries

https://search.heritageburnaby.ca/link/archivedescription62945

Repository: City of Burnaby Archives

Date: 1918-1976

Collection/Fonds: Burnaby Historical Society fonds

Description Level: Subseries

Physical Description: Textual records and other materials

Scope and Content: Subseries consists of manuscripts written by Leila Orman as well as paintings, scrapbooks, postcards, photographs, hymn books and correspondence.

Repository: City of Burnaby Archives

Date: 1918-1976

Collection/Fonds: Burnaby Historical Society fonds

Series: Community Archives Collection series

Subseries: Leila Orman subseries

Physical Description: Textual records and other materials

Description Level: Subseries

Accession Number: BHS2007-04

Scope and Content: Subseries consists of manuscripts written by Leila Orman as well as paintings, scrapbooks, postcards, photographs, hymn books and correspondence.

History: A. Leila Orman was born June 2, 1901 in Eastleigh, Hampshire, England. She is the youngest daughter of Daisy Marie Orman, her sister Daisy Hilda Orman (later Targett) being three and a half years her senior. At five years old Leila began a long fight with a crippling type of rheumatoid arthritis. By the time she was thirteen, she experienced completely ankylosed joints. Her family travelled all over hoping to find a cure, but to no avail. In 1913 her father joined his two brothers in Calgary, and by 1915 the family had joined him. Leila developed an interest in painting and knitting, and composed her own poems. She began writing news articles for the Calgary Daily Herald in the 1930s, and her first sonnet was published in that paper on August 28, 1934. She had a strong interest in the arts, often writing about music and the visual arts. While living in Calgary, she became a member of the Business and Professional Women’s Club as well as a member of the Canadian Author’s Association. When her father retired in 1938, the family moved to Rosewood Avenue in Burnaby. Leila wrote on a typewriter with two sticks to type out the letters. She was an avid reader and was able to turn the pages with a special stick with elastic bands wound around the ends. Canadian novelist Maida Parlow French became her lifelong friend and encouraged her to write her own autobiography, but she was not able to finish it. Leila wrote “The Giving Heart” in October of 1948. By 1952, she was writing the "Across the Board" column for the British Columbia Saturday Magazine with the intention of inspiring other “incapacitated folk” to live up to their full potential: “If [she] could reach a few people, and encourage them to reach up and out, [she] should feel the effort well worthwhile.” A member of the St. Alban’s Prayer Healing Fellowship group, Leila wrote the “Christian Manifesto for World Peace” in 1963. The Prayer Group met twice monthly at one of the members’ homes and undertook to pray daily for the sick and for world peace. After Leila’s mother died in 1955, Leila’s friend Jeanie Brown kept house for her and was her constant companion. Jeanie Brown and Leila lived together for over thirteen years until an accident sent Leila to hospital and later to nursing home where she died on February 16, 1976.

Media Type: Textual Record; Photograph

Creator: Orman, A. Leila

Notes: MSS104 and PC506; Title based on content of subseries

Ernest Winch fonds

https://search.heritageburnaby.ca/link/archivedescription64651

Repository: City of Burnaby Archives

Date: 1898-1961

Collection/Fonds: Ernest Winch fonds

Description Level: Fonds

Physical Description: 15 cm of textual records and 31 photographs

Scope and Content: Fonds consists of photographs, political leaflets, postcards, publications, correspondence and a scrapbook documenting the political careers of Ernest and Harold Winch.

Repository: City of Burnaby Archives

Date: 1898-1961

Collection/Fonds: Ernest Winch fonds

Physical Description: 15 cm of textual records and 31 photographs

Description Level: Fonds

Accession Number: 2010-06

Scope and Content: Fonds consists of photographs, political leaflets, postcards, publications, correspondence and a scrapbook documenting the political careers of Ernest and Harold Winch.

History: Ernest Edward (Ernie) Winch was born at Harlow, Essex, England on March 22, 1879. Ernest was one of seven children; Walter, Albert, Alfred, Horace, Ernest, Emma and Caroline (Carrie). In 1898, when he was 19 years old, Ernest immigrated to Canada with his friend Jack Holttum to work on a farm in Saskatchewan. Ernest’s brother Alfred followed soon after and together the Winch brothers worked in British Columbia, then in Australia. Unfortunately the country was at the height of a heavy drought and so Ernest returned to Harlow and followed in his father's footsteps, apprenticing as a bricklayer. In 1905 Ernest Winch met and married Australian born Linda Marian Hendy. While in England they had Harold, born June 18, 1907, and Eileen, born in 1908. Ernest sailed back to Canada alone in 1910, his young family following him months later. He quickly became a member of the Bricklayers and Masons International Union No. 1, Vancouver Branch. Ernest began studying socialism in 1910 and joined the Social-Democratic Party of Canada in 1911. The Burnaby local of the Social-Democratic Party nominated Ernest Winch as a candidate for School Trustee in 1914. He received seven votes. In 1915 he and his eldest son Harold left the rest of the family at their home in White Rock and went to Mission to establish a homestead. While living in the Dewdney area, he organized a small Social-Democratic group in Mission and became its Secretary. However, he did not stay long in Dewdney. In the summer of 1918, Ernest left the Social-Democratic Party to join the Socialist Party. Once back in Burnaby, now 38 years old and looking for a way to support his family, Ernest answered a call for new workers from the Longshoremen’s Union. He joined the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) Auxiliary and soon was elected its Secretary. By 1917, he was a part of the Vancouver Trades and Labour Council, serving as its President by 1918. In 1919, he joined the B.C. Loggers Union (later the Lumber-Workers Industrial Unit), serving as Secretary. Ernest endorsed both the Vancouver General Strike in 1918 and the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 and was active in his support of the One Big Union (O.B.U). After two and a half years, Ernest left the ILA and rejoined the Longshoremen’s Union along with his former O.B.U. brother, William A. Pritchard. Soon after, a strike broke out and its unsuccessful end caused Winch to go back to bricklaying. By this time, the four youngest Winch children had been born: Charlie, Grace, Alan and Eric. Ernest re-founded the Socialist Party of Canada (British Columbia) in 1932 and, with it, joined the new Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. In the 1933 provincial election he, his son Harold Winch, and five others became the first CCF Members of Legislative Assembly. As a CCF MLA for Burnaby, Ernest became a resolute advocate for immediate reform, exposing abuses and inadequacies in BC's social welfare and correctional institutions (including Oakalla) and taking a special interest in the problems of the aged. One of his many notable contributions was the creation of the New Vista Society, first developed to ease the problem of overcrowding in mental hospitals at the time. Ernest Winch held his seat in the legislature continuously until his death on January 11, 1957. One of his legacies left to the people of Burnaby are the New Vista Society senior citizens homes. He also founded the New Westminster branch of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (S.P.C.A.). Ernest and Linda’s eldest son Harold Edward, an electrician by trade, married Dorothy Ada Hutchinson on May 11, 1929. At 26 years old, he was elected CCF MLA for Vancouver East (in 1933) and became provincial party leader by 1938, serving as leader of the Opposition from 1941 to 1953. When the CCF was defeated in the controversial election of 1953, which saw W.A.C. Bennet come to power, Harold abandoned provincial politics for the House of Commons, where he represented Vancouver East until his retirement in 1972.

Media Type: Textual Record; Photograph

Creator: Winch, Ernest "Ernie"

Notes: Title based on contents of fonds; MSS129, photo catalogue 514

Interview with Elsie Ansdell by Eric Damer September 18, 2012 - Track 1

https://search.heritageburnaby.ca/link/oralhistory287

Repository: City of Burnaby Archives

Date Range: 1910-1946

Length: 0:09:17

Summary: This portion of the recording pertains to the Brown-Johns first settling in Burnaby. Elsie (Brown-John) Ansdell discusses land clearing for the family home, each of her parents and her brothers.

1 image 1 audio

Repository: City of Burnaby Archives

Summary: This portion of the recording pertains to the Brown-Johns first settling in Burnaby. Elsie (Brown-John) Ansdell discusses land clearing for the family home, each of her parents and her brothers.

Date Range: 1910-1946

Photo Info: Elsie Brown-John (bottom, far right) with her class at Kitchener Street School, [1936]. Item no. 549-001.

Length: 0:09:17

Names: Brown-John, Victor Joseph Charles; Brown-John, Winnifred Douglas

Subjects: Land Clearing

Geographic Access: Napier Street

Historic Neighbourhood: Vancouver Heights (Historic Neighbourhood)

Planning Study Area: Willingdon Heights Area

Interviewer: Damer, Eric

Interview Date: September 18, 2012

Scope and Content: Recording is an interview with early Burnaby resident Elsie (Brown-John) Ansdell conducted by Burnaby Village Museum employee Eric Damer, September 18, 2012. Major themes discussed are: settling in Burnaby and the early years of the Brown-John family.

Biographical Notes: Elsie (Brown-John) Ansdell’s father, a trained carpenter and cabinet maker, Victor Brown-John came to Canada from Wales in 1910. He cleared three lots at Napier and Gilmore Streets and built a two-roomed house. In 1912, he was joined by his wife and two eldest sons, Victor and Archie. Twin boys, Frank and Roy, were born in 1914 in the Burnaby home and their fifth son, Clive, was born in 1915. From 1916 to 1919 Victor John-Brown left Burnaby to serve overseas. Elsie Brown-John (later Ansdell) was born in 1921. Her younger brother, Gwyn "Jerry" was born in 1923. In 1925 Victor Brown-John suffered a fatal accident while working as a longshoreman in Northern British Columbia. Elsie attended Kitchener Elementary and North Burnaby High School. She married during the Second World War and moved to South Burnaby to raise her family whilst continuing to work in various department stores both in Vancouver and Burnaby.

Total Tracks: 4

Total Length: 33:02

Interviewee Name: Ansdell, Elsie Brown-John

Interview Location: Burnaby Village Museum

Interviewer Bio: Eric Damer is a lifelong British Columbian born in Victoria, raised in Kamloops, and currently residing in Burnaby. After studying philosophy at the University of Victoria, he became interested in the educational forces that had shaped his own life. He completed master’s and doctoral degrees in educational studies at the University of British Columbia with a particular interest in the history of adult and higher education in the province. In 2012, Eric worked for the City of Burnaby as a field researcher and writer, conducting interviews for the City Archives and Museum Oral History Program.

Collection/Fonds: Community Heritage Commission Special Projects fonds

Series: Burna-Boom Oral History Project series

Transcript Available: None

Media Type: Sound Recording

Images

Elsie Brown-John (bottom, far right) with her class at Kitchener Street School, [1936]. Item no. 549-001. thumbnail

Audio Tracks

Track one of recording of interview with Elsie Ansdell

https://search.heritageburnaby.ca/media/hpo/_Data/_Archives_Oral_Histories/_Unrestricted/MSS171-001/MSS171-001_Track_1.mp3

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Interview with Toki Miyashita by Rod Fowler February 27, 1990 - Track 1

Audio Tracks

Leila Orman subseries

Ernest Winch fonds

Interview with Elsie Ansdell by Eric Damer September 18, 2012 - Track 1

Images

Audio Tracks