Job at the Osaka Electric Light Company: beginning in 1910 at age 15

Notice of Employment from
Osaka Electric Light Company

Around this time, streetcars were beginning to appear on the main boulevards of Osaka, and Konosuke's instincts told him that electricity would be the wave of the future. Anxious to become a part of this new field, he applied for a job at the Osaka Electric Light Company, leaving his apprenticeship at the bicycle shop at age 15.
His next big job was the wiring of a major theater. This complicated project took over six months to complete, with Konosuke working his team around the clock to keep on schedule. Although the project was an unqualified success, long hours in the unheated theater in winter sapped his strength, and Konosuke contracted pneumonia.
In prewar Japan, arranged marriages were the norm, and, in the spring of 1915, at age 20, Konosuke's sister introduced him to her friend, Mumeno. Within a few months the two were married, and Konosuke was shouldering the responsibility of a new household.