NISBET o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-03-08 published
NISBET,
Audrey
Kathleen 'Ann'
Died Thursday, March 6, 2003 at Credit Valley Hospital, in her
72nd year. Cherished wife of Wallace
NISBET.
Beloved mother of
John (and Heather) of Nepean, Andrew (and Lili) of Edmonton and
Fiona of Oakville. Adored grandmother of Sarah, Olivia and Roman.
Dear sister of John and Cathy
CORBIDGE of London, England. Visitation
at the Kopriva Taylor Community Funeral Home, 64 Lakeshore Road
West, Oakville on Monday, March 10, 2003 from 2-4 p.m. and 7-9
p.m. Funeral Service to take place at Knox Presbyterian Church,
89 Dunn Street, Oakville on Tuesday, March 11, 2003 at 11 a.m.
Cremation. Thanks to the doctors, nurses, staff and volunteers
at the Credit Valley Hospital. For those who wish, memorial contributions
to the Canadian Red Cross would be appreciated.
'Ann's kindness and courage will be greatly missed by all who
knew her.'
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NISBET o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-11-04 published
DODDS,
Christine
Mary (née
NISBET)
Died on Sunday, November 2nd, 2003 at the age of 67, after a
brief illness. Beloved wife of Donald
DODDS and sister of John
and Wallace
NISBET, after a life lived with determination and
verve. She was a constant promoter of good will and concern for
others. She will be sadly missed by her niece Fiona and her nephews
Robert, Alec, John, Andrew and their wives and children. Christine
will also be missed by her neighbours and many Friends, including
those from her years working for the City of Toronto, earlier
for the Township of Etobicoke and from her long association with
Kingsway-Lambton United Church. Friends may call at the Turner
& Porter Yorke Chapel, 2357 Bloor Street West, Toronto at Windemere
east of the Jane subway on Thursday from 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. A Service
of Remembrance will be held on Friday, November 7, 2003 at 2
p.m. at Kingsway-Lambton United Church, 85 The Kingsway, Toronto.
For those who wish, donations made to Christine's favorite charity,
Doctors Without Borders, 402-720 Spadina Ave., Toronto, M5S 2T9
would be appreciated.
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NISHIHARA o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-12-12 published
A sleeping tiger of baseball
Founded in 1914, the Asahi team made history. This year, largely
because of the efforts of its catcher, the team made the Canadian
Baseball Hall of Fame
By Tom HAWTHORN,
Special to The Globe and Mail Friday, December
12, 2003 - Page R17
Victoria -- Ken
KUTSUKAKE was a catcher for the storied Asahi
baseball team of Vancouver, which disbanded when its Japanese-Canadian
players were interned during the Second World War.
Mr. KUTSUKAKE, who has died in Toronto, aged 92, helped keep
the team's memory alive over the years. He organized an Asahi
reunion at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in Don Mills,
Ontario, in 1972, ending, if only temporarily, a diaspora of
the diamond that had seen players sent to work camps, ghost towns,
sugar-beet farms, and, in a handful of cases, Japan.
Earlier this year, the amateur club was inducted into the Canadian
Baseball
Hall of Fame in Saint Marys, Ontario Mr.
KUTSUKAKE attended
the ceremonies in June, even taking part in a golf tournament.
The
Asahi roster shortens with each passing season. Mr.
KUTSUKAKE
is the third player to die since the induction. He was predeceased
by outfielder Bob
HIGUCHI, 95, of Pickering, Ontario, and pitcher
George YOSHINAKA, 81, of Lethbridge, Alberta. The Asahi are disappearing
like runners left stranded at the end of an inning. Only six
players and a team official are believed to still be alive, the
lone survivors as the club approaches the 90th anniversary of
its founding in 1914.
The Asahi drew their players from the Little Tokyo neighbourhood
surrounding their home field at the Powell Street Grounds (today's
Oppenheimer Park) in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. The Asahi
were physically slight compared to their opponents, among whom
were beefy longshoremen, so they depended on slick fielding,
larcenous base running and hitting so precise that it was said
they could bunt with a chopstick. They were nimble Davids competing
against slugging Goliaths.
The team (asa for morning, hi for sun) sometimes won games in
which they failed to record a hit. Their style of play, which
came to be called Brain Ball, earned them a following among discerning
Caucasian fans. In Little Tokyo, they were gods in woolen flannels.
"We were the toast of the town," Mr.
KUTSUKAKE told me earlier
this year. "To be an Asahi ballplayer meant lots to a lot of
people."
It all ended so quickly. When Pearl Harbor was bombed, it was
heard around the world. In British Columbia, all people of Japanese
ancestry were ordered removed from the coast as enemy aliens.
A neighbourhood team lost its neighbourhood and the Asahi never
played again.
Kenneth Hisao
KUTSUKAKE was born in Vancouver on May 25, 1911.
The Asahi had deep roots in the community and he joined the club's
youth team when he was 12 as a Clover (Go-gun). Blessed with
a strong throwing arm even at that young age, he was taught to
play the sport's toughest position. The neighbourhood boys gave
him the sing-song nickname, "Catcha-Catcha-
KUTSUKAKE."
He moved up the Asahi ranks over the years. From 9-to-5, Mr.
KUTSUKAKE worked for a company making boxes. After work and on
weekends and holidays, he could be found on the baseball diamond.
Finally, in 1938, Mr.
KUTSUKAKE became the starting catcher for
the parent club.
Adept at blocking wild pitches, he was known for his throwing
arm, a disincentive for rivals eager to mimic the Asahi on the
base paths.
On September 18, 1941, he went 0-for-2 before being pulled for
a pinch-hitter in his team's final at-bat in a 3-1 loss to a
club sponsored by The Angelus, a hotel. It would be the Asahi's
final game.
A few months later, his home was seized, as was his family's
Powell Street rooming house.
In 1942, Mr.
KUTSUKAKE was ordered by Canadian authorities to
leave his birthplace for the crimes of his ancestry. On that
terrible winter day, when he had to reduce 31 years of life to
a single suitcase, Mr.
KUTSUKAKE packed for an unknown life in
a relocation camp. Alongside family photos, he placed his cleats,
shin guards, catcher's mask, chest protector and his Asahi uniform.
For Mr. KUTSUKAKE, the equipment was a daily reminder that while
authorities could seize his home, deny him his job, and compromise
his freedom, no one could stop him from playing baseball.
He was sent to Kaslo on Kootenay Lake in the British Columbia
Interior, where he was joined by Asahi pitcher Nag
NISHIHARA.
One of their first acts in the camp was to form a baseball team,
an action that was also occurring in other ghost towns and internment
camps.
(Mr. KUTSUKAKE's father, Tsugio, had complained when he was ordered
to leave behind his wife and daughters. The senior Mr.
KUTSUKAKE
was instead sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in Angler, Ontario,
where inmates wore dark uniforms with large circles on the back,
a bull's-eye target for sharpshooters should any try to escape.)
On Dominion Day, 1943, four teams of interned players met in
a one-day showdown in Slocan City, British Columbia Lemon Creek
beat New Denver 13-2 for the championship, while Slocan and Kaslo,
featuring a battery of Mr.
KUTSUKAKE and Mr.
NISHIHARA, were
eliminated earlier in the day. More than 500 spectators watched
the tournament.
"Ahhh," said Mr.
KUTSUKAKE, still sore about a loss 60 years
earlier, "Lemon Creek had the most Asahi players. They should
have won."
After the war ended, those of Japanese ancestry were forbidden
from returning to the coast. Mr.
KUTSUKAKE wound up in Montreal,
where he played for the semi-professional Atwater team in 1947.
He moved to Toronto the following year, where he could be found
behind the plate at Christie Pits. He also had great success
as a coach and manager, winning a West Toronto minor championship
with the Westerns midget team in 1950. He later won a city championship
with the Bestway Nisei, a team comprised of the Canadian-born
sons of Japanese immigrants.
In 1956, he managed Honest Ed's Nisei, a mixed-race team, to
a senior city championship. A delighted Ed
MIRVISH feted the
players with a lavish banquet and presented each with a commemorative
wrist watch.
Mr. KUTSUKAKE worked for many years at Iwata Travel in Toronto.
Until recently, he volunteered at a seniors home, providing prepared
Japanese lunches for residents.
Mr. KUTSUKAKE rejoiced in the belated recognition afforded his
old team. He threw out a ceremonial opening pitch at a Toronto
Blue Jays game at SkyDome in May, 2002, and was deeply touched
by induction into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.
"Naturally, I'm honoured," he said. "It was a big surprise. I
never expected such recognition."
Mr. KUTSUKAKE also appears in the recent National Film Board
documentary Sleeping Tigers, which recounts the history of the
Asahi team and its players. The photographs he saved during the
evacuation have been displayed at the Royal Ontario Museum and
included in Pat Adachi's 1992 book, Asahi: A Legend in Baseball.
Mr. KUTSUKAKE died in his sleep on November 22 at Toronto Grace
Hospital, where he was attending his second wife, Rose, who has
been diagnosed with a brain tumour. His wife of 50 years survives
him, as do sisters Satoko and Eiko, both of Toronto. He was predeceased
by brothers Sekio and Ray, an Asahi pitcher. A first marriage
ended in divorce.
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NISHIHATA o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-04-23 published
Rolf O. KROGER, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus of Psychology University
of Toronto
Rolf died, as he lived, with grace, courage, humour and dignity,
at home on April 18th, 2003, of advanced prostate cancer. He
was the devoted and beloved husband of Linda
WOOD. He was the
cherished son of Erna
KROGER and son-in-law of Adele
WOOD; loving
brother of Harold and Jurgen
KROGER; dear brother-in-law of Wilma
KROGER,
Edelgard
DEDO, Lorraine
WOOD, Robert and Deborah
WOOD,
and Reg WOOD; much loved uncle of Andrew
KROGER and Stephen
KROGER,
Christina and Linda
JUHASZ-
WOOD, Taylor, Genna and Devon
WOOD,
Jonathan and Nicole
WOOD,
Phillippe
NOEL, and Jose and David
TILLETT, and nephew of Liesl
WINTER,
Otto
WINTER and Alf and
Sue MODJESKI.
Rolf was born in Hamburg, Germany, on September
28th, 1931. He emigrated to Canada in 1952, and completed a B.A.
in psychology at Sir George Williams College (now Concordia University)
in 1957. Following his M.A. (1959) at Columbia University, New
York, he received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University
of California at Berkeley in 1963. His advisor, Prof. Theodore
R. SARBIN
(Prof.
Emeritus,
University of California, Santa Cruz,)
has continued to be a valued colleague and dear friend, together
with Rolf's fellow graduate student, Prof. Karl E.
SCHEIBE of
Wesleyan University and Karl's wife Wendy. Rolf joined the Department
of Psychology at the University of Toronto in 1964 and continued
his research and writing in social psychology after retiring
in 1996. Rolf's work addressed a variety of topics concerning
the individual in the social system. His articles and papers
on the social psychology of test-taking, hypnosis, history, epistemology,
methodology and the discipline of social psychology all reflected
his dissatisfaction with the status quo combined with proposals
for new directions. For more than 20 years he has worked with
Linda A. WOOD
(University of Guelph) on topics in language and
social psychology (e.g., terms of address and politeness), and
most recently on a book on discourse analysis. At the time of
his death, he was working on a discursive critique of the 'Big
Five' personality theory enterprise and on stories of his experiences
growing up in Germany during the Second World War. Rolf also
took great pleasure in teaching and greatly valued the opportunity
to work for almost forty years with so many talented and enthusiastic
students, both undergraduate and graduate. Rolf was privileged
to have many long-lasting Friendships, and he was grateful for
the encouragement, help and comfort given by so many, especially
Bogna ANDERSSON,
Eva and Fred
BILD, Clare
MacMARTIN and Bill
MacKENZIE, Frances
NEWMAN and Fred
WEINSTEIN, Jesse
NISHIHATA,
Anne and Michael
PETERS,
Andrew and Judi
WINSTON and Lorraine
WOOD. We have also been sustained by the kindness of our neighbours
on Walmer Road. We express our particular thanks and appreciation
to family physician and friend, Dr. Christine
LIPTAY.
Our thanks
go also to the staff of Princess Margaret Hospital, to the physicians
and nurses of the Hospice Palliative Care Network Project, especially
Dr. Russell
GOLDMAN and nurses Francine
BOHN,
Joan
DYKE, Dwyla
HAMILTON, Lynda
McKEE and Ella
VAN
HERREWEGHE, and to the nurses
of St. Elizabeth, especially Liz
LEADBEATER,
Sylvia
McCALLUM
and Cecilia
McPARLAND.
Cremation was private. There will be an
Open House for remembrance and celebration on Sunday, April 27th
(3-7 p.m.), Monday, April 28th (4-8 p.m.) and Tuesday, April
29th (4-8 p.m.) at 98 Walmer Road, Toronto, Ontario M5R 2X7.
Please direct any queries to Frances
NEWMAN (416-351-0755.) In
lieu of flowers, donations to Temmy Latner Centre for Palliative
Care (700 University Avenue, Third Floor, Toronto, Ontario M5G
1Z5) or Amnesty International would be appreciated.
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