Kuniko “Connie” Yamauchi passed away peacefully on the afternoon of August 30, 2022.
Kuniko was the youngest child of Takao Horiuchi, a railway foreman, and Yuki Horiuchi, homemaker. They lived on Clark Drive in Vancouver, where Kuniko was born on May 26, 1930.
In the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Canadians of Japanese descent were displaced from the west coast. The Horiuchis evaded the detention camps by obtaining subsistence labour on a ranch near Vernon, BC.
There, Kuniko met a young army cadet named Henry Yamauchi. They started a relationship and married in 1955. Henry’s work with Westcoast Transmission took them from Edmonton to Savona and then, in 1968, back to the west coast. After Henry’s retirement in 1992, they opened an engineering consultancy.
Kuniko loved dogs, babies, Japanese food, and family time. Her happiest days were in the Okanagan with her parents, sister Mary, and brother Hajime. Her love and care for family live on in her son Ron Yamauchi and his wife Willow, nephew David Koga and his wife Heather, her grandchildren Sophie and Flynn, and her nieces and nephews, Janet, Linda, Brendan, Andrew, Ethan, Sabrina, and Liam.
A memorial service for Kuniko will be held at Kearney Funeral Services, 450 W. 2nd Avenue, Vancouver, at 11 am on Wednesday, September 21, 2022. A burial service will be held in Kelowna Memorial Park Cemetery at 11 am on Thursday, September 22, 2022.
In lieu of flowers or gifts, the family asks that you consider a donation to the SPCA.