John Risso and Antonia (Toni) Russo

​John was the first born of four children to Gaspar Risso and Inez Hewer.  The children: John (1934), Alan 1(935), Reta (1936) and Rhoda (1938) were all born in Kelowna, BC.  John has lived in Kelowna all his life.  He went to Mission Creek School (corner of Benvoulin and KLO Roads) from grades one to eight.  For two of those years, John went to school at seven a.m. to light the wood stove fires in three classrooms and one teacher’s room.  The wood and kindling were split and put into the wood boxes the day before.  He was paid five dollars a month, not bad considering a bottle of Orange Crush from Mugford’s Store cost six cents and a pack of cigarettes was thirty cents.  Yes, students smoked in the teacher room, after they had all the stoves going.  After graduating from Kelowna Senior High (corner of Harvey Ave and Richter street) in 1952, he found employment at S.M. Simpson Saw Mill.  

Antonia immigrated to Canada from Italy in 1951, at the age of thirteen.  She first lived in Golden, BC, then Winfield, BC, and finally Oyama, BC.  She is the first born of nine children to Geniale Russo and Maria Filice.  Toni and John were married in Kelowna in 1958.  They have three children: Cathy (Ted Cundy) 1959, Robert (Linda Nicholson) 1962 and David (Nathalie Mehl) 1964.

John and his family operated “Casorso Road Produce,” a fruit and vegetable stand, for about forty years on property that grandpa Vincenzo and Annetta Risso had purchased in parcels, starting in 1913.  The property is now home to Green Square Town Houses and the Vert Condo developments.

Contributed by John Risso