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TI: Okay, so you're in Hawaii, and your dad's commanding a submarine division. Any childhood memories of Hawaii during this tour of duty?

MH: Oh, yes. We lived at a, rather a distance from Honolulu, in Kalihi Valley in a beautiful estate there which was, which had been built by this man, really, for his wife. It was a, there were three buildings there, there was the first, I guess the first one was the ballroom and living room, and then there were two, I forgot what they called them, two open spaces, roofed over, one of which we usually had our breakfast in. And then there was a building which was really the, the bedrooms. And, let's see, it was three or four stories, I've forgotten how tall. And then the other building was the laundry and where the maids and cook lived and all that. And all of this backed onto a hillside, so that there was these, sort of, I don't know, not gangplanks, but whatever it was out to the hillside from the different stories of the house. But the front of the house was right on the stream. The stream came down and there was a waterfall and a pool below, and you could dive from the second story of the house into the pool. And across, from the house, was this walkway, you know, a bridge, just for walking, over to the main road. And this man who built this was a great party giver. So, but people had to drive up the road and park up around that way. And in the back, I think it was a 400 acre estate, something like that, and so if the party was going really well and he wanted people to stay there, he'd pull up the drawbridge on the, on this path, and they couldn't get home. But I believe by the time that we were living there, the drawbridge was no longer being utilized, or it may have been closed down for that matter, although we still had that walkway over the road.

TI: That was a fabulous description. It sounds like a set for a movie.

MH: Yes. I've got pictures of it. It is, it's really quite a place.

TI: So was this common for a Navy officer to be able to live in a place like this?

MH: No. No, indeed.

TI: So how was it that your family was able to live...

MH: This was the Depression, and therefore this man needed to rent out this place at what price he could give. And the housing allowance for my father was sufficient to allow him to rent this place at that time.

TI: Wow. What a wonderful, sort of, memory to be living in this place.

MH: Yes. Oh, yes, I dreamed of that house for years.

TI: And is it still in existence, this house?

MH: Relatives have tried to find it, and they have not been able to.

TI: So my notes indicate that you were in Hawaii during this tour for only about two years?

MH: Oh, yes, normal, normal length of tour was two, alternated between two and three, I think.

TI: So it must have been difficult to leave this one because of the place. I would imagine that was a pretty fabulous place.

MH: Well, you know, I just took it, accepted it, you know. That's the way, that's the pattern that you get into, you just accept, you don't question.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.