Grace Kinuyo Canfield's Obituary
Grace Kinuyo Canfield, dancer, teacher, caretaker, and lover of all people, died on Saturday April 22nd, 2017, at the age of 72. She had many gifts and interests, including an intuitive understanding and appreciation of people (especially children), languages (including French, Japanese, Russian, Italian, and Portuguese), and dance in all of its expressive forms.
Born Grace Kinuyo Tani on July 6, 1944, in Woodbine, Georgia, she was the daughter of Jin Shinobu Tani and Tamayo Shiromoto Tani. Jin and Tamayo were born US citizens but had been raised in Japan. When Grace was born, Jin and Tamayo were working on a lettuce farm owned by other Japanese-Americans, having been recently released from Minidoka Japanese internment camp in Idaho (one of many Japanese internment camps of World War II). Not being fluent in English, they made poverty wages in Georgia and returned to California empty-handed, save for their new baby girl, Grace, and her older sister, Nancy.
Grace grew up in Oakland, California with both parents and four siblings, Nancy, Art, Alice, and Ernie. Despite her towering 4’ 9 ¾” stature, Grace became a beautiful ballet and modern dancer, performing all the way into her late 40s with the exciting, funny, and quirky Nouveau Dance Troupe. As a college student, her interest in a career in ballet and maintaining her studies were often in conflict. After she abandoned her professional dance aspirations, it seemed like a natural fit for her to pursue a career as a primary school teacher. She was an A student and studied French and Italian at UC Berkeley, where she also earned her teaching credential. She taught elementary school in San Francisco, which she thoroughly enjoyed.
Grace married Andrew Jay Canfield on August 15, 1971, and through his work as a software engineer they spent time traveling the world. They lived for varying amounts of time in Indonesia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Portugal, and Saudi Arabia. With him she gave the gift of life to two children, Heather Tani Canfield and Christopher Leonard Canfield. She left teaching in 1976 to become a full time mother, though she continued to teach through volunteering at Fairwood and Lakewood Elementary Schools.
Grace taught both her children how to read and write before kindergarten. But more importantly, she taught them how to think for themselves and how to be generous and compassionate. She was a mother, not just to her biological children, but to the entire neighborhood. Her unconditional loving kindness, generosity of spirit, and after school “snackoes” were the stuff of legends. Parents looking for their children would come to Grace’s house, knowing she was feeding and tending to them.
After a difficult divorce in the late 1980s, Grace bounced back, determined to regain financial independence and stability. She became a security guard for Pinkerton at Intel, soon running the Badge and Key office for Intel’s Santa Clara Headquarters, which she did for over 25 years. It was through that job that she put two kids through college, paying tuition, fees, and housing by working 12 hour shifts. During years when they approved overtime, she had more to give her family. Other years, she did the overtime anyway, without compensation, for the sake of the office. She worked for herself and her family. But she also worked because Intel was her home, her other family, and because she enjoyed the work and the people so much.
Grace always said she didn’t see herself retiring. And indeed she worked all the way up to the day before her first cancer-related hospital stay, a surgery in January of 2017. She hoped to return to the office once chemo had removed the esophageal cancer from her system. She fought the cancer with everything she had, but the tumor was too aggressive. She succumbed to it peacefully on Saturday, April 22, in her home of 40 years, surrounded by her children.
She is preceded in death by her generous and loving parents and her brother, Art.
She is survived by her children, Heather and Chris; their partners, David “Eto” Davis and Laura Canfield; and her two sisters; one brother; two siblings-in-law; five nieces and nephews; their partners; and three grand-nieces; in addition to a small group of others who are and will always be family (you know who you are).
Her remains will be placed in the Chapel of Light within the Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland, California, where she performed piano recitals as a child. Her impact is shared amongst all who met her.
Instead of flowers, Grace would request that you feed someone you love.
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