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

PROUD TO BE PALAMA

MOSES W. “MOKE” KEALOHA PROUD TO BE PÄLAMA Those days, ever since I could remember , I don’t know whether we spent more time at Pälama [Settlement ] or more time at home. I think we spent more hours at Pälama . You just went home to eat, and went home to sleep. The rest of your waking hours was at Pälama. Moses W. “Moke” Kealoha was born in Honolulu in 1928. His mother, Maria Kekai Gardner Kealoha, was a homemaker; and his father, Enoka Kealoha , a carpenter and painter. Moke Kealoha grew up in the family’s North School Street home, in the rough-and-tumble West Honolulu district of Pälama. To Kealoha’s regret, the home was sold to the territorial government in the mid-1950s to make way for the Lunalilo Freeway. The youngest of sixteen, Kealoha attended Likelike School, Kawänanakoa Intermediate School, and Farrington High School. After his military service , he went on to the University of Hawai‘i, University of Miami, and Columbia University. As a youth he participated in activities at Pälama Settlement. Later he served on its board. Through the years he has maintained close ties with the settlement. An automobile sales executive since the 1950s, he retired from Servco Pacific, Inc. in 1996. He and his wife, Ululani Baldwin Kealoha, raised three children. The following narrative is excerpted from oral history interviews conducted in 1997 by Warren Nishimoto for Reflections of Pälama Settlement, a two-volume set of interviews featuring life histories of individuals recalling their life experiences and the role the settlement house played in helping them adjust and adapt to life’s difficulties. Kealoha, “Proud to be Pälama” 155 I met this lady, she’s a personnel director—I forget where we met—through someone else. “Moke Kealoha. Moke Kealoha. Ey, Moke Kealoha, you Pälama ?” “Yeah.” “Ey, I’m from Pälama, you know. You know the fire station? I live right in back there. Iona Lane.” “Yeah, yeah!” And you never met in your life. But that’s the Pälama boy or the Pälama girl. Regardless of the age, regardless of what era. I was born at 533 North School Street in 1928. The age difference between myself and the oldest sister in the family was like little more than thirty years. And then the closest above me was my brother Enoka. And he was four years older than me. And above him, my brother Tommy, he was like about three years older than my brother Enoka. So number fourteen [Tommy], fifteen [Enoka], and sixteen [Moses], as a result, became the closest, simply because we were close by age. Being the youngest I’d have to get up at five in the morning. Clean the yard, rake the yard, pick up the leaves and do those chores. Then get to the corner of School [Street] and Liliha Street, sell the morning paper for about an hour so we can make that commission, eh? You got a penny for so many papers that you sell. That paid for my soup in the elementary school. Aerial view of the Pälama neighborhood, ca. 1932; Pälama Settlement, fronting Vineyard Street, is the complex of buildings in the center of the photo (Pälama Settlement Archives, photo reproduced by courtesy of Pälama Settlement). 156 Talking Hawai‘i’s Story I should have be[en] home by the latest, four o’clock every day in the afternoon . ’Cause that’s how long it takes to prepare the fire and get the hot water. Got to cook fifty-gallon drum water. So when he [my father] comes home by five, five-thirty, that water gotta be hot. And he does his things, put his tools away or whatever it is, and he takes a bath. And then after that’s done, then we gotta prepare for dinner. We eat poi every meal. Our family had taro patch in Kaua‘i, but that mostly goes to commercial route. So we buy [taro] from See Wo Poi Factory. Every Saturday in the afternoon, we going make our own poi. Make our own poi means you get the fresh poi, that from the taro you boil, and then you clean the skin, and then you smash ’em, you pound ’em, and you get the poi. And then you have to water...