Prominent People | Page 159 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

April 26, 2016 by Peter T Young 3 Comments

‘Righteous and Honorable Diplomat’

“Europe, 1940-41, was a place and time of too few heroes. The world had begun a journey down an unalterable path to horror. …”

“But, in the face of those horrors, there were many who were courageous, who acted selflessly, who saved lives — not for any honor or reward, but simply because they could not act any other way. One man who possessed that courage was Hiram Bingham IV.” (Denise Merrill, Conn Sec of State)

Hiram Bingham IV (known as ‘Harry’) was part of an ‘underground railroad,’ engaged in smuggling people out of Europe. People who belonged to this conspiracy were filing in and out of his house as though they were on conveyor belts. Harry Bingham was participating in discussions of all sorts of illegal activities. (Robert Kim Bingham)

“I do want you to know that Hiram Bingham had me (when I was a 15-year old boy in Marseille working for the Quakers) into his office and told me how he would issue my family a visa to the US after we had obtained the release of my father from the Gurs Concentration Camp.”

“I could write a treatise about what Consul Hiram Bingham did to save refugees during his posting as US consul at the American Consulate in Marseille, France in the 1940-1941 period. He definitely helped to save my life and that of my parents and sister.” (Survivor Ralph Hockley)

“I owe my life, literally, to Hiram Bingham IV, who issued US immigration visas to my grandmother, Anna Ginsburg, grandfather, Marcel Ginsburg and to Helene Sylvia Ginsburg, who would become my mother later in her life. She was 18 at the time.”

“The three fled Antwerp, their home, on May 10, 1940, the day Germany invaded and occupied Belgium. They traveled, by car, to Paris where they hoped to spend the war. It was not to be. As the Germans neared Paris, my relatives escaped west, to Bordeaux.”

“According to the stamps in my mother’s Belgian passport from that period, the three received Immigration Visas from US vice consul Hiram Bingham in Marseille on September 12.”

“After that, they received French exit visas in Perpignan on September 14. Then back in Marseille, they received Portuguese and Spanish transit visas. They crossed from Cerbère into Spain, reaching Barcelona on September 20 and Lisbon the next day. … The two married in 1942. I was born three years later in Manhattan.” (Jane Friedman)

“Of the three of my family he saved in 1941 in Marseilles I am the last one alive and I write this with trembling fingers and many a tear. May his name be honored for ever. (He) saved my Mother, my sister and I.”

“Without him we would not have been able to avoid the concentration camp to which we were assigned two days later. He provided us with a ‘Nansen Passport’ because we no longer held citizenship in any country, and therefore had no papers.”

“He risked a great deal to do this. I still have the document. We cannot honor him enough, and not that many whom he saved are still around to pay him tribute. I am grateful every day. … Thank you.” (Survivor Elly Sherman)

“As vice consul, Hiram Bingham was in charge of issuing visas – visas that could quite literally mean the difference between life and death. Bingham began issuing visas in June of 1940 to Jews and political refugees alike, on occasion even sheltering them in his home.”

“He did so because he simply believed in his heart that it was the right thing to do and the only thing his conscience would allow. However, his actions were not in accord with the official policies of the United States. Germany, at that time, was not our enemy.”

“Also, to assist in the smuggling of refugees was a violation of his orders and the laws governing France. When those who were desperate to escape were refused by American consulates in other French cities, they began, in increasing numbers to turn to Bingham in Marseilles.”

“It is impossible to determine the exact number, but during his relatively brief service in Marseilles, Hiram Bingham was directly or indirectly responsible for saving the lives of perhaps 2000 or more people.”

“Some were or would become famous – Leon Feuchtwanger, Franz Werfel, Alma Mahler Werfel, Heinrich and Golo Mann, son and brother of Thomas Mann, Max Ernst, Marc Chagall, Andre Breton, Andre Masson, Nobel Laureate Otto Meyerhof, Konrad Heiden, Hannah Arendt, and others.” (Denise Merrill, Conn Sec of State)

“Harry Bingham did more than issue visas. He was actively involved in rescue operations – spiriting threatened persons out of the hands of the Vichy police.”

“In one well known incident he helped Lion Feuchtwanger escape from an internment camp and hid him together with Heinrich Mann and Golo Mann – Thomas Mann’s brother and son – in his apartment. He helped Varian Fry through numerous scrapes with the Vichy police by using his consular post to imply US interest and concern.”

Survivor Author Thomas Mann: “I want particularly to be able to thank you personally for your sympathetic help to the many men and women, including members of my own family, who have turned to you for assistance…Yours Very Sincerely, Thomas Mann.”

“Many more were ordinary human beings fleeing tyranny. Harry’s saving work would end in the summer of 1941, when he was relieved of his post and transferred first to Lisbon and later to Argentina. His career in the diplomatic service ended in 1945.”

“He has been honored by many groups and organizations including the United Nations, the State of Israel, and by a traveling exhibit entitled ‘Visas for Life: The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats.’” (Denise Merrill, Conn Sec of State)

Simon Wiesenthal Center video Tribute to Hiram (Harry) Bingham IV:

Hiram Bingham IV was the son of Hiram Bingham III (who rediscovered the ‘Lost City’ of Machu Picchu (he has been noted as a source of inspiration for the ‘Indiana Jones’ character;)) grandson of Hiram Bingham II (born in Hawaiʻi and was a missionary in the Gilbert Islands;) and great grandson of Hiram Bingham I (leader of the Pioneer Company of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to Hawaiʻi.) (Hiram Bingham I is my great-great-great grandfather.)

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Hiram Bingham IV-ID card

Hiram Bingham IV circa 1980

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ROSE AND HARRY’S FAMILY WHEN HE RESIGNS FROM FOREIGN SERVICE, circa 1946

ROSE AND HARRY’S FAMILY AT HOME IN SALEM CONNECTICUT (circa 1953)

Hiram Bingham IV-Medal of Valor

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Hiram Bingham IV-MedalOfValor_Citation

April 20, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Walker Estate

Captain Heinrich Hackfeld was an adventurer born in Dalmenhorst, in Oldenberg, Germany. He was a sea captain on the China run when he sailed into Honolulu Harbor for provisions.

He stayed; he and his brother-in-law Johann Carl Pflueger founded a dry goods store called H Hackfeld and Company in 1849 in Honolulu. In 1881, Paul Isenberg became a partner.

George Rodiek was first vice president of H Hackfeld & Co; he also served as German consul in the Islands. In 1905, Rodiek built a two-story home with a series of garden featuring ferns, rocks and orchard in Nuʻuanu.

Then, WWI came (1914-1918.) In 1918, using the terms of the Trading with the Enemy Act and its amendments, the US government seized H Hackfeld & Company and ordered the sale of German-owned shares. (Jung)

The patriotic sounding “American Factors, Ltd,” the newly-formed Hawaiʻi-based corporation, whose largest shareholders included Alexander & Baldwin, C Brewer & Company, Castle & Cooke, HP Baldwin Ltd, Matson Navigation Company and Welch & Company, bought the H Hackfeld stock. (Jung)

The German-started H Hackfeld & Co became one of Hawaiʻi’s “Big Five.” (Hawaiʻi’s Big 5 were: Amfac – starting as Hackfeld & Company (1849;) Alexander & Baldwin (1870;) Theo H Davies (1845;) Castle & Cooke (1851) and C Brewer (1826.))

In 1918, Rodiek sold his Nuʻuanu home to Alan Wilcox who remained in it until the 1930s when it was taken over by Henry Alexander Walker (Walker became president of American Factors in the 1930s – American Factors shortened its name to “Amfac” in 1966.

The next year (1967,) Alexander’s son, Henry Alexander Walker became president and later Board Chairman. Over the next 15-years, Walker took Amfac from a company that largely depended on sugar production in Hawaiʻi to a broadly diversified conglomerate. After adding so many companies, Amfac sales were $1.3 billion by 1976, up from $575 million in 1971. (hbs-edu)

After subsequent sales of controlling interests in the company and liquidation of land and other assets, in 2002, the once dominant business in Hawaiʻi, the biggest of the Hawaiʻi Big Five, Amfac Hawaiʻi, LLC (Limited Liability Company) filed for federal bankruptcy protection. (TGI)

OK, back to the house … The nearly-6-acres of grounds were originally used for orchards and vegetables although the Japanese garden was put in shortly after the house was built (thought to be the oldest formal Japanese garden in Hawaiʻi,) the stones, lamps and images specially brought from Japan for it.

Wilcox expanded the gardens, but it was not until the Walkers took over the house that the grounds were made into a showplace. (NPS)

The Walkers turned the estate into world famous orchid gardens. Una Walker (Henry Sr’s wife) maintained the estate by making the grounds available for weddings and visitors and as a movie and television set.

The Walker residence is one of the few intact estates that were built in the upper Nuʻuanu Valley before and after the turn of the century. The Classical Revival style reflects an era of gracious living that for various reasons has passed from existence except in a few isolated cases. (NPS)

In 1973, the property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places; in addition more that 20 of its trees are listed as exceptional trees. (Being on the register doesn’t mean that a private landowner cannot demolish a historic site.)

In 1989, two years after Una’s death, the house and its grounds were sold by the Walker heirs to Masao Nangaku of Minami Group (USA) Inc. His intention was to restore the original house to be used as a corporate retreat; he renovated the house.

After Nangaku experienced financial problems, Richard Fried and partners took the property over and, in 1998, asked for planning permission to build a chapel to facilitate weddings on the site.

When this was refused, the estate was sold to Holy-eye (the Hawaii business arm of Forshang World Foundation and Forshang Buddhism World Center) the same day.

In 2005, Holy-Eye listed the estate for sale. In June 2006, real-estate developer TR Partners attempted to purchase the estate and planned to demolish the building and subdivide up to 20-home sites.

In 2006, Historic Hawaiʻi Foundation listed the Walker Estate to that year’s Most Endangered Historic Site (listing there calls attention to Historic resources that are often threatened by demolition, neglect, ignorance and/or apathy.)

The Taiwan and US flags are flown at the entrance to the property.

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Walker_Estate

Walker_Estate-rear-view-(NPS)

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April 15, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Kamiano

The history of the Christian missionary movement that got underway in the nineteenth century and lasted well into the twentieth characterized the whole of Western Christianity at the time – Roman Catholic, Anglican and Protestant.

The missionary movement was part of the large-scale religious revival that followed the 18th-century Enlightenment thinking and the bloody French Revolution.

Joseph De Veuster was born in Tremeloo, Belgium, in 1840. Like his older brother Pamphile, Joseph studied to be a Catholic priest in the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts.

Pamphile was to serve as a missionary in the far distant ‘Sandwich Islands,’ but when it came time for him to depart he was too ill to go. His brother Joseph went in his place. (NPS)

Joseph arrived in the Islands on March 9, 1864; he had the remainder of the schooling at Sacred Hearts Father’s College of Ahuimanu, founded by the Catholic mission on the Windward side of Oʻahu in 1846.

“The college and the schools are doing well. But as the number of pupils is continually on the increase, it has become necessary to enlarge the college. First we have added a story and a top floor with an attic; then we have been obliged to construct a new building. And yet we are lacking room.” (Yzendoorn)

Bishop Maigret ordained Father Damien de Veuster at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, on May 21, 1864. “Here I am a priest, dear parents, here I am a missionary in a corrupt, heretical, idolatrous country. How great my obligations are! How great my apostolic zeal must be!” (Damien to parents; Daws)

Early in June, 1864, Maigret appointed Damien to Puna on the east coast of the island of Hawai‘i; another new missionary, Clement Evrard, was appointed to Kohala-Hāmākua.

Damien learned the Hawaiian language (he had just previously learned English during his long journey to Hawai‘i. His Hawaiian was far from perfect, but he could manage to get by with it. Damien’s name became ‘Kamiano.’

Like most Catholic missionaries of that time, he saw his mission in intense competition with that of the Protestant ‘heretics,’ who did not kneel while praying and who distributed the local kalo (taro,) instead of bread for communion and even water instead of wine. (de Volder)

Shortly after arriving in Puna, in a letter to Pamphile, Damien wrote, “I regret not being a poet or a good writer so as to describe our new country to you.” Although he had not yet seen the active Kilauea volcano erupting, he added, “from what the other Fathers say it seems there is nothing like it in the world to give a correct idea of Hell.” (Daws)

A few months in Puna taught Damien at first-hand what he had heard in advance from the Maui missionaries: that life in the field was nothing like life as a novice in the religious order in Europe.

“Instead of a tranquil and withdrawn life, it is a question of getting used to traveling by land and sea, on horseback and on foot; instead of strictly observing silence, it is necessary to learn to speak several languages with all kinds of people …”

“… instead of being directed you have to direct others; and the hardest of all is to preserve, in the middle of a thousand miseries and vexations, the spirit of meditation and prayer.” (Damien in letter to father-general of the Sacred Hearts, 1862; Daws)

Father Clement Evard, his closest but distant neighbor, had an even more formidable area to cover: the double district of Kohala-Hāmākua, about a quarter of the Island. He was not as strong as Damien.

Damien carried his church on his back (a portable altar which he set up with four sticks pounded into the ground and a board balances on top with a cover cloth.)

His life was simple – with the help of the faithful, Damien began to do some small farming (keeping sheep pigs and chickens; bees for honey and wax for candle making; etc.) “The calabash of poi is always full; there is also meat; water in quantity, coffee and bread sometimes, wine and beer never.” (Daws)

Eight months after they arrived in their respective districts, Damien and Clement discussed exchanging posts; in early 1865, Damien left Puna for Kohala-Hāmākua.

Damien was a considerable builder of chapels. In the months he was in Puna, he and his Hawaiian helpers put up four small buildings where Mass was said; in the eight years he was in Kohala and Hāmākua, he almost always had one or another construction project in hand. (Daws)

Damien stayed in Kohala until 1873; then an impassioned plea appeared in a Hawaiian newspaper: “This we respectfully suggest. The presence of His Majesty (King Lunalilo) at Kalaupapa would have a most inspiring effect upon his unhappy subjects, who are necessarily exiled; and also upon all others throughout the Kingdom, on observing this evidence of a paternal care for the saddest and most hapless outcasts of the land.”

It went on to note, “If a noble Christian priest, preacher or sister should be inspired to go and sacrifice a life to console these poor wretches, that would be a royal soul to shine forever on the throne reared by human love.” (Nuhou, April 15, 1873; Report of Board of Health)

Maigret was aware the lepers needed stable spiritual support, but did not dare to permanently charge a priest to that assignment, fearing it was too much of a risk or too cruel. He asked, Who wanted to go, in rotation to Molokai, each for a period of three months?

Four candidates quickly volunteered: Gulstan Robert, Boniface Schaffer, Rupert Lauter and Damien de Veuster. Damien was chosen as the first to go; the reason for the choice is unknown. (de Volder)

At thirty-three years of age, he was as old as Jesus at the time of his passion. Damien was ready, more than ever. “Lord, send me!” (de Volder)

Damien spent the rest of his life in Hawaiʻi; he was diagnosed with Hansen’s Disease in January, 1885. He died April 15, 1889 (aged 49) at Kalaupapa. In 2009, Damien was canonized a Saint in the Catholic Church. The image is a portrait of Father Damien, attributed to Edward Clifford. (1868)

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‘Portrait_of_Father_Damien’,_attributed_to_Edward_Clifford-1868

Church of Waiapuka Kohala built by Father Damien

April 10, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Palea and the Pinnace

Captain Cook spent the month of December beating around the eastern and southern sides of Hawaiʻi, and finally anchored in Kealakekua Bay January 17, 1779 – having returned to make repairs to a broken mast. (Alexander)

Cook’s reception this time presented a striking contrast to his last. An ominous quiet everywhere prevailed. No one greeted them. A boat being sent ashore to inquire the cause, returned with the information that the king was away, and had left the bay under a strict taboo. (Jarves)

During the king’s absence the chiefs Palea and Kanaʻina kept order among the people. After Cook’s ships had anchored, the chiefs came on board and informed Cook that Kalaniopuʻu would be back in a few days.

Another prominent man, Koa, was apparently the highest officiating priest of the place (in the absence of the high-priest who accompanied Kalaiopuʻu.) (Alexander)

“Being led into the cabin, he approached Captain Cook with great veneration, and threw over his shoulders a piece of red cloth, which he had brought along with him. Then stepping a few paces back, he made an offering of a small pig which he held in his hand, while he pronounced a discourse that lasted for a considerable time.”

“This ceremony was frequently repeated during our stay at Owhyhee, and appeared to us, from many circumstances, to be a sort of religious adoration. Their idols we found always arrayed ill red cloth in the same manner as was done to Captain Cook, and a small pig was their usual offering to the Eatooas.” (King; Cook’s Journal)

“That same afternoon Captain Cook landed and was received by Koa, Palea, and a number of priests, who conducted him to the Heiau (Hikiʻau,) just north of the Nāpoʻopoʻo village and at the foot of the Pali. Here the grand ceremony of acknowledging Cook as an incarnation of Lono, to be worshiped as such, and his installation, so to say, in the Hawaiian Pantheon took place.” (Fornander)

The next day (Friday) the damaged masts and sails and the astronomical instruments were landed at the former camp, and the friendly priests tabued the place as before.

On Saturday afternoon, matters rapidly went from bad to worse.

Some of Palea’s retainers stole a pair of tongs and a chisel from the armorer of the ‘Discovery,’ leaped into their canoe, and paddled with all haste to the shore. Several muskets were fired after them in vain, and a boat was sent in chase.

Palea, who was on board, offered to recover the stolen articles, and followed in another canoe. The thieves reached the shore first, beached their canoe, and fled inland.

Mr Edgar, the officer of the boat, undertook to seize this canoe, which belonged to Palea, who refused to give it up, protesting his innocence of the theft. A scuffle ensued between them, in which Edgar was worsted, when a sailor knocked Palea down by a heavy blow on the head with an oar.

Upon this the whole crowd of natives looking on immediately attacked the unarmed seamen with stones, and forced them to swim off to a rock at some distance.

Palea, however, soon recovered from the blow, dispersed the mob, called back the sailors, and restored the missing articles as far as he could.

The following night the large cutter of the ‘Discovery’ was stolen by Palea’s people, taken two miles north, and broken up for the sake of the iron in it. (Alexander)

“This was the same Palea who from the first had been the constant, kind, and obliging friend of Captain Cook and all the foreigners, and who, only the day before Cook’s death, had saved the crew of the pinnace of the ‘Resolution’ from being stoned to death by the natives, exasperated Palea himself.”

“The boat had been at the brutal and insolent manner in which Palea had been treated by an officer of the ‘Discovery.’”

“It was during the night after the above fracas, the night of the 13th February, that the cutter of the ‘Discovery’ was stolen from her mooring, as King himself admits…”

“… ‘by Palea’s people, very probably in revenge for the blow that had been given him,’ and not by Palea himself. The boat had been taken to Onouli, a couple of miles higher up the coast, and there broken to pieces.” (Fornander)

Captain Cook commanded Kalaniopuʻu, the king of the island, to make search for the boat, and restore it. The king could not restore it, for the natives had already broken it in pieces to obtain the nails, which were to them the articles of the greatest value.

Captain Cook came on shore with armed men to take the king on board, and to keep him there as security till the boat should be restored. (Dibble)

On February 14, 1779, Cook was killed. (The image shows a drawing of Palea by William Ellis.)

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April 5, 2016 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Soaring, Surfing & Sailing

Born in New York on April 5, 1912, the older of two children, Woodbridge (Woody) Parker Brown came from a very wealthy home, headed by a father with a seat on the Wall Street Stock Exchange. Woody was expected to step into that position.

But he had other ideas and, at the age of 16, walked away from school in favor of hanging out at Long Island airfields, because he was crazy about planes. He learned to fly, and acquired a glider. (Gillette)

He met aviator Charles Lindbergh at Curtis Field on Long Island. Inspired by Lindbergh, Woody learned to fly in a Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny,” an obsolete single-engine trainer used by the US Army Air Service in World War I. (Kampion)

Woody virtually lived at New York’s Curtis Field where he became a protégé of Lindbergh, but Woody soon discovered that his true passion was for the unique world of gliders, soaring silently on invisible currents of air. His goal was to acquire the finely tuned sensitivity required to read the air and wind with nothing to hold him aloft but his own skill. (dlbfilms)

“Soaring appealed to me because it’s like surfing or sailing. It’s working with nature; not ‘Brute Force and Bloody Ignorance.’ You know, you give something enough horse power and no matter what it is it’ll fly.”

“Flying was brand new, then! Every time you took off it was an experiment. You didn’t know what was gonna happen. Every flight was a brand new flight. So, it was real exciting.” (Brown; Gault-Williams)

He soon met Elizabeth (Betty) an Englishwoman and they headed West to San Diego in 1935. The young couple lived at La Jolla, where Woody got into bodysurfing, then surfing.

He built his own board, a hollow plywood “box” that would float him so he could catch waves at Windansea, Bird Rock, and Pacific Beach. His second board – the “snowshoe” – was more refined.

He adapted some of the aerodynamic wisdom he’d acquired to the much denser medium of water. The outline was traced from the fuselage of his glider; it featured a vee bottom and a small skeg.

At nearby Torrey Pines, he was the first to launch a glider from the high bluffs into the vaulting updraft of the onshore breeze. He survived a couple of near-death experiences there and a couple of crashes riding the inland thermals. He became a soaring champion, winning meets around the state and country.

In the midst of “the happiest years of my life” (Kampion,) in 1939, at Wichita Falls, Brown flew his Thunderbird glider 263-miles to national and world records of altitude, distance, maximum time aloft and goal flight. President Herbert Hoover sent him a congratulatory telegram. (Marcus)

He made it home for the birth of his son; unfortunately, his wife, Betty, died in childbirth. Distraught, he left his infant son and all of his possessions in La Jolla and moved to Hawai‘i (he eventually reconciled with his abandoned son, some 60 years after the fact.) (Surfer)

“I left my car, the garage, my home, glider, everything. I don’t know what happened to them. I just walked out and left everything. When you’re off your rocker that way, you know, you don’t know what you’re doing.”

In the early 1940s, Brown joined surfing pioneer Wally Froiseth and began surfing pristine waves in remote places like Mākaha and the North Shore.

Flying was not available in Hawai‘i at the time, so he tried to surf the sadness out of his system. He’d go out in the morning and surf all day long. “I’d be able to sleep a little ‘cause I was so damn tired … I survived. Surfing saved my life.” (Brown; Marcus) In 1943, he married Rachel.

A conscientious objector, during WWII he worked as a surveyor for the Navy on Christmas Island. There, he noticed double-hull canoes.

When he returned to Hawai‘i, Woody and a Hawaiian friend, Alfred Kumalae, went to Bishop Museum and studied all the Polynesian canoes on display. (Gillette)

He teamed with Rudy Choy, Warren Seaman and Alfred Kumalae who started C/S/K Catamarans. They designed and built Manu Kai, a 38-foot double-hulled sailing catamaran (using wooden aircraft construction techniques.)

In 1943, Brown and Dickie Cross got caught in rising surf at Sunset beach and paddled down the coast looking for a lull in the massive waves. They ended up at Waimea, where the bay was closing out with sets as big as 20-30 feet.

Cross went over the falls of one wave and was never seen again. Barely alive, Woody crawled up in the beach in the darkness. Spooked by the disappearance of Cross, big-wave riders would wait a decade before trying to tackle Waimea Bay again. (Coleman)

Brown was one of three surfers photographed charging down a giant Mākaha wave in 1953. The iconic photo, which appeared in newspapers around the world, is credited with triggering a migration of surfers to Hawai‘i.

George Downing, who along with Buzzy Trent, was also on the 20-foot wave. “(Brown) was the only one that made the wave. That was point break at Mākaha. Where Woody was he was on the perfect place on the wave.” (Downing; Star-Bulletin)

During the ’50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, Woody continued his carefree life of surfing and sailing; in 1971, Woody, then 59, took a glider to a Hawaiian altitude record of 12,675-feet. Not long after, Woody lost his beloved wife Rachel. (dlbfilms) In 1986, Woody flew off to the Philippines, where he met and married his third wife, a young woman named Macrene.

Woody Brown dedicated the rest of his life, a life which he has always considered to be blessed, to giving as much as he can through service to others. His sense of spirituality mixes elements of the Christian tradition with his lifelong love of nature and his sense of gratitude for the gifts he feels he’s been given.

If you asked him if he’s a Christian, he’d say no. If you asked him who he considers his ultimate role model, he’d say Jesus Christ. Woody marched to his own drummer. (dlbfilms) In 1980, he wrote The Gospel of Love: A Revelation of the Second Coming.

A film of his life, ‘Of Wind and Waves: The Life of Woody Brown’ premiered to great acclaim at Mountainfilm in Telluride where it won The Inspiration Award. In 2004, the 35-minute version won the “Audience Award for Best Short” at the Maui Film Festival.

Woody Brown died April 16, 2008 on Maui, he was 96. “Woody Brown was one of the first and greatest icons in the history of surfing.”

“He was the essential surfer, an iconoclast: extremely independent, futuristic and, most especially, healthy, which explains why he lived for 96 very productive, wonderful years. And I only hope more of us who call ourselves surfers can live the way Woody lived. Sad as anyone passing is, what a joyous life.” (Fred Hemmings)

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