Meet The Volunteers

at

www.lalley.com

 
Bob and Yasuko Kulp

I have traced my Irish family roots (Elliott and Friel) on and off for a few years. My great grandmother, Margaret Friel, was born in Donegal and immigrated in 1875 -1876).  Her husband Samuel Elliott was born in Wilmington.  Sam's father, Robert, was from Ireland as was his mother, Flo Culbertson.

My Pennsylvania relatives have researched the German side of my family (Kulp - Kolb) although this information has not been released through the Internet.

I grew up in Wilmington and was a member of St. Elizabeth parish.  In 1951, I graduated from Salesianum School, an all male college preparatory Catholic high school.

I have been married for forty-four years to Yasuko Kiyota   She was born in Tokyo and raised in Niiagata City and on Sado, an island in the Sea of Japan.  While I was stationed at the Niigata Air Force Base,  I met Yasuko in an English conversation class in 1955.  We dated for a year.  Her father, however, would to let her marry a GI.  I subsequently returned to the States to complete my enlistment and to attend the University of Delaware in 1961 where I earned a degree in electrical engineering.  After a six-year trans-Pacific courtship between Delaware and Japan, I returned to Japan in 1962. We were married in the American Embassy in Tokyo and in the Niiagata Catholic Church. 

We have two sons and five grandchildren. We now live in Blaine, Minnesota, about twenty miles north of Minneapolis.  We have two sons, a daughter, and five grandchildren.  Yasuko and I spend most of our time caring for our granddaughter Ciara.  Ciara's mother (our daughter) and her husband are both teachers here.

 

Back to Volunteers Page