Written by Kelly Miyamoto
Genealogical Information
| Yoheji Taguchi | Ichi Taguchi | ? | |||||||||||||||||
| Zenichi Taguchi 1906 – ? | Fumi Taguchi 1911 – ? | ||||||||||||||||||
| – | Junko Lucy Taguchi Sumi | Yoshinori Taguchi | Kenneth Katsuji Taguchi | – | |||||||||||||||
Ken Taguchi was too young to remember his family’s experience being relocated to Farnham, but through his discussion with his siblings and research, he has put together a narrative of his family’s displacement during and after the internment era.
Kenneth Katsuji Taguchi was born in 1943, to Fumi and Zenichi Taguchi. He is the youngest of three siblings; elder sister Junko Lucy and elder brother Yoshinori. The Taguchi family was displaced from Hastings Park to the Tashme internment camp in either 1942 or 1943. From Tashme, their family was relocated to New Denver in 1945, where they lived for about a year or so, before being transferred to the Farnham Hostel in 1946.
In Tashme, Ken’s family lived in Barn B1. Ken’s father, Zenichi, had been sent to work at the Red Pass road camp from their home in Port Hammond, Vancouver (now part of the city of Maple Ridge). He was then transferred to the Tashme internment camp to work, and was already there when the rest of the Taguchi family arrived.
Farnham Hostel
Ken says his family was displaced to Farnham from New Denver in the fall of 1946. He has no recollection of Farnham but he believes that his family was there for about a month before moving to Montreal. Ken recalls his sister, Lucy, being there for only about a week before she moved to the city to live with a white family while she attended school.
In Farnham, Ken believes that his family stayed in a house located outside of the military base. Ken was just a baby at the time, but his brother, Yoshinori, recalls having to walk a long distance from the house they were living in to the barracks for meals. “And you know what, that more than exhausts my knowledge of Farnham,” Ken said.
The Taguchi family later relocated to Montreal. While Ken’s father searched for work in the city, the Taguchis shared an apartment with another family. Ken believes this situation lasted nearly a year. His father was eventually employed as a woodworker and built furniture. The Taguchi family moved to Rosemont around 1984. “Now I’m old enough to start remembering things. I was in kindergarten by then,” Ken said.
Ken currently lives in Kingston with his wife. His daughter Laura and her family live there as well, and his son Brian lives in Vancouver. Regarding the plans to install a monument in Farnham, Ken notes that “a nice plaque [with] some description or other would be nice, but not something that looks like a gravestone.” Ken has been to Tashme and wants to visit Farnham sometime in the future.