Coby Yutaka Kobayashi
BORN October 30, 1920 DIED August 10, 1999 OCCUPATION Businessman, investor, financial advisor
COBY YUTAKA KOBAYASHI was born October 30, 1920, in Steveston, BC to Torano and Kamekichi Kobayashi. He was the youngest of six children. He learned English when he went to Lord Byng Elementary School. While a student at Richmond High School, Coby was chosen by the school to go the coronation of King George VI. In 1940, Coby started at the University of British Columbia. He was the first in his family to attend university, and he began in the Bachelor of Commerce program. While he was in second year, all persons of Japanese ancestry were uprooted from the West Coast under the War Measures Act. Coby and his family chose to go to Manitoba, where they were able to stay together. They left behind a number of fishing boats, a newlybuilt house and all of their land. The family was put to work on a sugar beet farm. They lived in a tool shed and stuffed newspaper in the wide cracks in the walls to keep warm during the harsh prairie winter. By June of 1943, Coby obtained permission from the BC
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Security Commission to move to Toronto. Kobayashi found work at the Alpha Aracorn Radio Company, owned by a Mr. A. Applebaum. Starting as a shipper earning just $25 per week, Kobayashi was later promoted to work at the front desk. Coby lived in a nearby apartment without hot water, and rented a typewriter to send letters to family and friends. On November 1, 1947, Coby married Yone Matsui and the couple used her savings to buy an empty residential lot. Kobayashi didn’t know much about construction, but could see that there was money to be made in the Toronto housing boom. It took him a year to finish the first house, which he learned to build by watching builders on the surrounding lots. In 1952, Coby and Yone moved into a house on a quiet suburban crescent, where they lived for the next 47 years. The crescent was full of young families, but no other Japanese-Canadians. The couple had three children, one girl and two boys. They opted not to teach
RETURN a commemorative yearbook in honour of the Japanese Canadian students of 1942
their children Japanese, fearing that it would impede their fluency in English. In the early 1960s, Coby started speculating on real estate, and he went on to work as a realtor. Later, he owned the first Toronto company to inspect sewers using video cameras, and in the mid1960s he began a career in mutual fund sales and financial planning. Coby and Yone joined other Japanese-Canadians to build the Toronto Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre (JCCC), which opened in 1963. The centre offered in everything from judo to ikebana flower arranging, and also held festivals and events. At home, the neighbours contacted Coby for help with everything from hanging pictures to fixing bicycles to fixing a burst hot water tank If someone had a skunk in the window well, he’d take a board from his collection and nail bacon on it to lure the skunk out. He sold tickets to JCCC dances to the neighbours and they would all dress up and go out together. He was also an active member of the Yorkminster United Church.
Coby encouraged us to pursue our education, saying, “They can’t take knowledge away from you.” He was happy that all his children went to university. Coby and Yone travelled widely to Europe, Egypt, the Caribbean and Asia. They continued their support of the JCCC, which named the auditorium in their honour. During the two-week hospitalization leading to his death in 1999, Coby couldn’t bring himself to stop working. Seeing how many visitors came to see him, he called up his son Marty from his hospital bed and said, “You’d better bring down some business cards and pamphlets—there are a lot of people here!” On Coby’s last day, a young doctor who knew him came to offer tearful condolences, saying Coby was a remarkable man. He died on August 10, 1999, and to that day, his UBC yearbook with his first-year photo rested on the credenza in his office.