Victor Isao Kadonaga

Dad's birth certificate says Swanson Bay, BC -- but his earliest memories are of Englewood, a tiny mill town on Vancouver Island that melted back into the forest long ago. His parents, Shigeji "Richard" and Miyo "Mary", moved to Vancouver in 1931. Dad went to Henry Hudson Public School and was attending Kitsilano High School on the Day of Infamy. It was still winter when he was sent to the BC interior to help build the Tashme internment camp. Eventually his mother and 6 younger siblings joined him - Kaz (Catherine), Edith (Paul "Tosh"), Ko (Florence), Ken (Irene), Jim (Chicky), and Nancy.

Some of the internees formed a dojo, and Dad continued his judo training there, in between organizing the Cub Scout pack -- at the time, the largest in the British Empire -- and walking to a work camp on the Hope-Princeton highway, where he learned how to use explosives to clear rocks and stumps.The family was ordered to leave the west coast after the war. Dad finished high school near Goderich, went to McMaster (B.A. 1951) and became a school teacher in Hamilton, at Robert Land and Viscount Montgomery. He took courses at U of T for a B.Ed. (1954) and eventually an M.Ed. (1959). He became an adjustment counsellor, and in total worked for the Hamilton Board of Education for 33 years. He met Akiko "Arky" Tanaka, who was working as a nurse with the VON - Prof. John E. Thomas married them in 1961 at the McMaster Chapel, and they were together until Arky's death in 2015.

Dad attained a 4th Dan black belt. He served as secretary of the Canadian Kodokan Black Belt Association, and also assistant secretary of the Judo Union of North and South America. He worked behind the scenes at several international events, like the Pan Am Games in Winnipeg. At home, he started jogging and cross-country skiing, and walked with his family in the natural areas around Hamilton.

He became an expert calligrapher. He often did headlines for the local teachers' newspaper Apple, edited by Iris Berryman. Dad learned how to read and write Japanese, and did origami artwork. He was awarded a Centennial Medal in 1967 and a Queen's Silver Jubilee Medal in 1977.

Dad will be missed by many, including his daughter Lisa, surviving siblings, and lots of nieces and nephews. Special thanks to his devoted friends Steve Gaudun, Pat Oertel, and George Kellner - and to the skilled (and patient!) staff and volunteers at Regina Gardens on Upper Paradise, Hamilton Mountain.

Koden gratefully declined. By Dad's request, he was cremated wearing his judo outfit. His resting place will be with Mom at the Bayview Cemetery, near Lamb's Hollow Gate where he taught their daughter to fish in Grindstone Creek.

Due to covid, a celebration of Vic and Arky's lives will be scheduled at a future date - please contact Lisa at [email protected] or on Facebook for details.