GRAMPA WAS A NONCONFORMIST

Altho' I've been putting together some slides to show people who visit the "Mini Museum", I wanted to post a little of it here too.

Grampa was a nonconformist. You wouldn’t think so by looking at him napping in the backyard lawn chair, but if you thought about what he did when he was younger, well, it’s pretty unquestionable.

Does this look like a REBEL to you?

It was just before the end of his last year in high school when he left Okinawa on a boat. He decided he would not graduate because the moment he did, he would be drafted into the Imperial Army. So he sought freedom across the waves and procured a passport. “Kamasuke Ogusuku,” it read. That was his full name.

Grampa Passport from the Imperial Draft

At the Hawaiian port, his name was one of the contract laborers called to disembark. But even other Japanese smirked at the name. They recognized and looked down on Okinawan pig-farmers. Kamasuke decided he would no longer use “Ogusuku,” but use the mainland Japanese pronunciation of his last name in order to avoid this ostracism. No one was going to look down on him and impede his potential for going forward. From then on, he called himself Kamasuke Oshiro.

No longer "Ogusuku", but "Oshiro" to work Rails, Farms, Hotel

He went on to Vancouver, Canada, working any odd job he could find from working for the CPR in Kenora, Ontario, farming in Nanaimo, helping in the hotel at Lake Louse. The image “hobo” may be similar to what Grampa did, since he carried most personal possessions with him in a carpet roll wherever he went.

Grampa was one tough cookie. He told me that when he was a boy, he used to be the one in the neighborhood, willing to be the catcher when they played ball. This was before they had mitts, so the catcher would stand facing slightly sideways with his open palm anchored against his thigh to receive the pitch. (Catchers STOOD back then, he showed me, didn’t crouch down as they do now.) I don’t know if he was allowed to hold a cap or hanky or leaf (or if anything were even available) between the ball and his hand, but that’s the way he says they played. 

Grampa Takes a Bride, Roy is Born

After he had built up sufficient savings, a relative in Okinawa wrote for him to come back and find a bride. This relative had lined up a dozen available girls him to choose from. Delighted, Kamasuke returned to Okinawa and chose Masako (the one in middle), a qualified schoolteacher, from the village of Tengan, where I now live. 

Kamasuke and Masako returned to Canada and settled in Vancouver, setting up a thriving business, the B.C. Wood and Coal. Their three sons were enrolled in school and taught the western way of life, but Japanese was spoken at home. When the first baby, Roy, was born, a missionary, home on furlo’ from Japan happened to be visiting in the hospital.

After talking with the parents for some time, he asked to pray for the baby. and asked that God would save him and send him to Japan as a missionary! Grampa and Gramma never spoke about the incident. 

When the Great Depression came, Grampa decided, after much thinking, that he could not keep the family with him. He had Masako and the 3 boys go live with wealthy relatives in Tengan. He would go back to “carpet bagging” and hopefully could make enough money to call them back. Roy was a 4^th grader by this time. 

In Tengan

That’s my Dad, Roy, in the back, with his brother George standing in the front between the two grandmas. His youngest brother Aki is standing next to his mother Masako. 

Daddy spends 2 years here, running barefoot with the other children, swimming in the creeks, and gains a love for them that revives the moment of his conversion decades later in Canada and impels him to return as a missionary. 

Incidentally, of all those relatives Daddy comes to give the Gospel to, it is only the cousin two places to his left, Seiko, who accepts Christ while Daddy is alive.

I’ve already let the cat out of the bag, saying my Dad was in Canada when he got saved. Grampa DOES keep sending letters to his family in Okinawa every month telling of matters in Canada as he works away during the Depression Years, and yes he DOES gain sufficient financial stability to call them back to Vancouver. So, after 2 years in Okinawa, the family says a teary good-bye and returns to Canada.

But the story about my Grampa ends here, and the story about my Dad just gets started.