Talking Hawai`i's Story: Oral Histories of an Island People

WORKING COWBOY

WILLIE THOMPSON WORKING COWBOY Before you can be a cowboy, you got to get a degree, a “Ph.D.” I got mine when I was twelve years old. First thing we do, we go work on the fence. Like today , you got a steel post, you just pound ’em down, eh? Those days, all with the hole digger, see? So, that’s “Ph.D.,” eh, “post hole digger.” William “Willie” Thompson, third of eleven children, was born in Kula, Maui in 1902. His father, Charles Thompson, was German; his mother, Annie Ah Quin, was Hawaiian-Chinese. On his family’s ranch, Willie Thompson farmed vegetables, milked cows, and trained horses. At age eighteen, he left for Honolulu, where he groomed and exercised polo ponies for the O‘ahu Polo Club. He later became a cowboy for Kona’s McCandless Ranch. Beginning in 1924, Thompson worked in construction, first for a private contractor, then for Hawai‘i County. Initially elected to the Hawai‘i County Board of Supervisors in 1942, he served intermittently until 1968. Thompson ranched on leased land in Hönaunau, South Kona, until his death in 1996. Warren Nishimoto, who interviewed Thompson in 1981 for COH’s Kona project, remembers a genial, gravelly-voiced man who always wore a cowboy hat. The interview took place at Thompson’s ranch house where, Nishimoto noticed, on one wall hung a “cowboy Ph.D.” diploma. The complete interview transcript, from which the following narrative has been edited , is found in A Social History of Kona. * * * * * My father was a rancher. We had some cattle, but actually, we have more the milking stock. They [the stock] were about half mile from the house. Maybe not quite a half mile, but quite a ways down, where they go out, daytime, in 272 Talking Hawai‘i’s Story the pasture. Mostly all cactus down in that place. Then, in the evening, bring ’em home right in the little paddock right next to the milking pen. In the morning, we get up, well, the cows right there. We never had no barn to milk cows in. You milk ’em right outside. We sold milk to the Kula Sanatorium. When we deliver milk, we ride our horse, or mule, jackass, like that, hanging on to the milk cans. Just about a mile. I had to deliver milk and go to school. The sanatorium [was] up on the hill, and the school right below, you see. After school, [we] come home, we have to go and plow the field up. We plow, plant corn, or plant whatever. Then, down in that lower land, where I said there’s cactus, we raise pigs down there. They live on cactus. Once a day, you feed ’em corn, too. We [also] had chickens. Of course, chickens, we had a chicken coop, where you keep the chickens in. Some run loose, but most of ’em all penned up. My sisters and all, they handled the chicken part. We boys would get out in the field. There was another ranch right next to us—Kamaole Ranch. They had horses, but nobody [to] train ’em. So we trained these horses. We take couple of horses and stick ’em out up at our place. Horse, we get five dollars a head, and the mules, ten bucks. (Chuckles.) Mules were harder to train. First you catch ’em, tie ’em up, put a halter on ’em. We all try to treat ’em gently. Make the horse understand that you’re not going to hurt ’em, eh. You see, we have plenty grain, so we feed our horses cracked corn. They get to come to you. You pet ’em, brush ’em down, and all that. They get tame. When we get spare time, we want to hunt and go up Haleakalä. You can’t take your work horse up there, so we get this half-broken horse and go up. Those days, we used to do that when this people [visitors] come from away; they want to get up the mountain. Then we make ten dollars, take ’em up. After the horse is real tame, then they [the owners] go out and take ’em to the plantation. They sell ’em, eh? If they can get $150, that’s good money. But around $50 was about the regular price for a horse. Those days, over in Maui, they had a Maui High [School], but only haoles go there. The Chinese, most of ’em went to St. Louis College...