The Founder Konosuke Matsushita

Born as the youngest child in a family of five daughters and three sons, his first years were happy and carefree. But the family’s fortune turned when his father lost property when he was four.
In late November, 1904, his mother took her nine-year-old son to Kinokawa Station in Wakayama to see him off. She put him on the train and asked some of the other passengers to look after him. He tried to listen to her tearful words of caution and encouragement about the life he was to face. Konosuke said goodbye to his mother and left on the long, lonely ride to the big city.
To help support the family, Konosuke was apprenticed to a hibachi (charcoal brazier) store in Osaka.