THE KITAGAWA FAMILY: A Farming Legacy in South Langley
Kitagawa family collection
Mokichi Kitagawa came to Canada in the wake of the unrest that swept Japan following the Russo-Japanese War. During the First World War he married Rise Kobayashi and together they made a new life in British Columbia. Their first agricultural success was hampered by hailstorms, and their second was seized by the government.
Mokichi Kitagawa (1889–1979) was born in the village of Tsuchida in Shiga-ken Prefecture, Japan and came to Canada in 1907 when he was eighteen years old. He worked west of Revelstoke in sawmills at Three Valley Gap and Taft. His marriage to Rise Kobayashi (1885-1994) was registered in Japan on June 8th, 1917. Mokichi returned to Japan for a three-month visit in late 1917 and their wedding was celebrated on January 20, 1918. Rise joined him in Canada in June 1918. By 1919 when their first child was born, they were living in Summerland and farming fruit. When their crops were hailed out in 1929, the family, now with five children, made the move to Langley in the fall of 1930.
Because mainstream banks were reluctant Their land was on the southwest corner of Berry Road (208 Street) and North Bluff Road (16th Avenue). They cleared fifteen acres to farm and live on and left the remaining one hundred and forty-five acres in its natural state. The Kitagawa farm had two three-room houses, a garage for the truck and Caterpillar tractor, a barn for their horse and hay, two greenhouses, a woodshed, a shed, a root cellar, a bath house, chicken coop, and an outhouse. A pumphouse was built down a steep path to the Little Campbell River so they could pump water from the creek to irrigate the vegetables. Around 1940, Mokichi purchased lumber and supplies to build a new house, but the family’s forced evacuation two years later meant he was not able to build the new home he had planned.
