Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

EE Black

He was born Everette Earl Black. His company was called EE Black; folks called him ‘Johnny’. Black “was born on a log cabin ten miles from Terre Haute”, Indiana in 1889. His father “was originally a farmer, and then a carpenter, then a railroad car builder – freight cars first and then passenger cars later – for the Pennsylvania Railroad. (W)e were what they called poor honest people.”

“I graduated actually in electrical engineering. I had an uncle in Victor, Colorado on the old (Portland Mining Company) gold mine and I shook him down for a job, so I worked in the gold mine for a year after I graduated and got a little money ahead”. Then, he came to the Islands on the 10th of June, 1913, working various construction jobs and eventually formed his own company, in 1930 it became EE Black, Limited, earning the company’s slogan “On Track with Black”.

by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Hung Wai Ching

Hung Wai Ching was born on August 1, 1905, in Hawai‘i. His parents, Yei and Un Fong Ching, came to Hawaii in 1898 from the Chung Shan district of Guangdong province, China. Ching became a real estate broker and land developer, as well as continuing to be a leader in the community, serving on several community and company boards. He, along with his brother Hung Wo Ching, helped found Aloha Airlines.
The greatest contributions made by Hung Wai Ching were his outspoken affirmation of the loyalty of Japanese Americans and the direct part he played in the long struggle of Japanese Americans to regain that opportunity to bear arms and to prove their ultimate loyalty to America. (Tsukiyama)

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Mānoa – Home of Hawai‘i’s Commercial Agricultural Ventures

Mānoa Valley was a favored spot of the Ali‘i. In early times Mānoa Valley was socially divided into “Mānoa-Aliʻi” or “royal Mānoa” on the west, and “Mānoa-Kanaka” or “commoners’ (makaʻāinana) Mānoa” on the east. The Ali‘i lived on the high, cooler western (left) slopes; the commoners lived on the warmer eastern (right) slopes and on the valley floor where they farmed.

The well-watered, fertile and relatively level lands of Mānoa Valley supported extensive wet taro cultivation well into the twentieth century. Click the link for more information about Mānoa’s pioneering role in the development of commercial-scale agricultural ventures in the Islands – Sugar, Pineapple, Coffee and Macadamia Nuts – all had their commercial start in the Islands, in Mānoa.

by Peter T Young 4 Comments

Carl Frederick Reppun

Carl (in early years ‘Karl’) Frederick Reppun was the son of Frederick William and Fredericka (Koene) Reppun. He was well traveled in Europe and appeared to enjoy an outdoor life with many activities such as riding, skiing, hiking and sailing. He became a doctor. In 1911, he married Emily Jane Lewis of Llein, Wales, in London, England. In 1913, he had several career options: he could have become an apprentice to a Moscow surgeon or he could have chosen offers to set up a practice of medicine in Archangel (within the Arctic Circle), or in Irkutsk on Lake Baikal in far-eastern Siberia. He chose to be the only physician in the Siberian mining or steel mill town of Tirljian.

At the outbreak of World War I, Dr. Reppun was practicing medicine as a mining company doctor in the village of Tirljia. Being a Russian subject, he was mobilized into the Czar’s army, but remained in Tirljian as the head of the hospital, converted into a military one for the care of the wounded shipped back from the front. Later, the family reviewed options as to where to re-locate. They considered Japan, China and the Philippines, along with Hawaii; they opted to try Hawai‘i. In mid-1920, the Reppun family finally evacuated Russia aboard the last ship taking American personnel to Tsurugu, Japan. On July 4, 1920, they sailed on the Army Transport “Buford” for Honolulu, and stayed there. He died on June 7, 1940, at The Queen’s Hospital, at the age of 57. The Reppuns had three sons: ‘Frederick’ and Eric, born in Russia, and Arthur, born in Hawaii in 1921.)

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Kahuna to Christian

“Hewahewa knew the prophesy given by Kalaikuahulu a generation before. This prophesy said that a communication would be made from heaven (the residence of Ke Akua Maoli, the God of the Hawaiians) by the real God. This communication would be entirely different from anything they had known. The prophecy also said that the kapus of the country would be overthrown. … when the kapus were overthrown, Hewahewa knew a communication from God was imminent.” “In the days of Kamehameha I, Hewahewa was the highest priest in the land. … Hewahewa developed doubts about Hawaiʻi’s pagan system and the gods – Kane, Ku, Lono, and Kanaloa – who ruled over it.”

“He observed foreign traders who ignored or even scoffed at the sacred kapus yet suffered no ill. … Thus it was not strange that when Liholiho (Kamehameha II) asked Hewahewa’s advice about breaking the eating-kapu, the priest in a few words indicated that he would not oppose such a move.” Later, Hewahewa wrote a letter to Levi Chamberlain of the mission, stating, in part, “I walk in fear and awe of God for the wrongs of my heart, for he is the one who knows me. The love of the son of God is true indeed. It is of my own volition that I tell this to you. Regards to all the church members there.” (Hewahewa)