The Roadshow celebrates its 20th anniversary with treasures from Spokane, WA, including a 1919 Belmont Stakes trophy, 1963 “The Avengers” comics and two Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso oil paintings. Which find is worth $200,000 to $300,000?
The Roadshow celebrates its 20th anniversary with treasures from Spokane, WA, including a 1919 Belmont Stakes trophy, 1963 “The Avengers” comics and two Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso oil paintings. Which find is worth $200,000 to $300,000?
When Mitch DʻOlier arrived in Hawaii from Iowa, fresh out of law school, he fell in love with the islands. Since then, he has helmed Hawaiian Airlines, helped guide the development of Kakaako and Kailua, and has found time to support public education in Hawaii.
Transcript
I wanted to be able to own a house and have a family. And I wanted to be able to pay my bills and be okay. I wanted to give my kids more stuff than I had. That’s really how I was. ‘Cause like, my old neighborhood, there was the private school guys and the country club guys, and all that stuff, and I was never one of them.
Mitch D’Olier worked hard not only to give his children more than he had, but to become a successful leader in land development in Hawaii. Now, his passion is improving public education. Mitch D’Oier, next, on Long Story Short.
Long Story Short with Leslie Wilcox is Hawaii’s first weekly television program produced and broadcast in high definition.
Aloha mai kakou. I’m Leslie Wilcox. Henry Mitchell D’Olier, better known as Mitch D’Olier, is a familiar name to many on Oahu for his role in the development of Ward Kakaako, and more recently, for leading development in Kailua on the Windward side of Oahu. He was born in Chicago, where he grew up in the late 1940s and 50s in a working class neighborhood. His education outside of the classroom proved to be as valuable as what he learned while in school.
My dad didn’t make as much money as my mom would have liked him to, and ultimately, my mom had to go back to teaching. My mom was public school teacher, and right now, you’d say she taught in a Title 1 school. And she was a major influence in my life about education.
What did your dad do?
My dad was a business forms salesman; he designed and sold paper forms for a big national company, and then started his own company when he was about forty-five years old. And with the technology of today, that’s not around anymore.
And the south side of Chicago … how tough was that?
You know … I was young, and I wanted to play basketball. And I started playing basketball, and so, I got to know the Black people at my high school, and the other people at my high school. And our high school was about forty-five percent Black American, and we got along okay. And it’s a little bit ‘cause I was a basketball player, and I knew a lot of guys that I didn’t have problems. Was it challenging? Sometimes, yeah. Was was there gang warfare? Was my division teacher shot on the back stairs at my high school? Yeah; all that happened. You know, I think no matter who you are and where you are, when you grow up, you kinda think that that’s, like, normal. And that was my perception at the time. I look back at it, and I say, Wow, that was a little bit crazy.
And sports was your protection.
Sports was one of my protections. It was something I did.
You said one of the protections. What else?
I did activities. I mean, I was a good student. I was involved in the yearbook, and led some organizations; Boy Scouts, stuff like that.
Did your parents give you explicit advice, or did they teach you by example?
Okay; my mom was more explicit advice, and my dad was by example. And maybe this was like when you grow up with a teacher. But I would, like, get tests. On the morning that I had tests, I would get tests at breakfast time. I’d come to breakfast, and there would be a little board, and there would be all these questions. That’s just how my mom was.
Because she knew what you were already studying?
Yeah; she knew what I was studying, and she wanted to be engaged in it. And she was convinced that I needed one degree beyond college. And so, my goal from about the time I was in seventh grade was—my goal, I knew I was gonna have to get one advanced degree beyond college, ‘cause that’s what my mom wanted.
Did the tests make you feel loved and appreciated, or did they irritate you?
Both. [CHUCKLE] Depends on the day. There were irritating days, but looking back on it, loved and appreciated, for sure. You know, I was really lucky, ‘cause I never doubted that my mom and dad loved me.
So, when you realized, Okay, I have to have a degree past college—
Right.
What were you thinking? [CHUCKLE]
My mother wanted me to be a doctor. Okay; that was like, my mom’s plan. My kid’s gonna be a doctor. And my grandfather once saw me clean a fish, and he said, Helen, that boy’s never gonna be a doctor.
[CHUCKLE]
And I got to college, and I didn’t like the science as well as I liked the writing. And I ended up with a double major in English and general science, because I was more interested in reading and writing. And that led me to law school.
Why did you take science, if you weren’t as interested in it?
‘Cause my mom wanted me to.
Oh, I see.
I was trying to be a good son.
And did you always conclude that she had been right?
I thought she was probably right. And it’s like … I have a theory that guys are pretty clueless when they’re younger. I think women learn quicker, and we try to catch up, or maybe we spend our lives catching up. But … I was just doing pretty much what my mom wanted; it sounded like it was gonna work out okay. And then, I get into organic chemistry and physics, and I’m like, You know, this is just drudgery.
M-hm.
I found out when I got to college that my high school wasn’t as challenging as it should have been.
Ah. So, it was hard for you?
Well, it was hard to learn how to work. ‘Cause I really had to work when I got to college, ‘cause the stuff didn’t just come because I showed up in class and I could figure it out. It was easier than it should have been for me to do well in school. And then, part of it was obsessive compulsive mother at home. So, you know, it was a combination of those two things.
Mitch D’Olier went to college at the University of Iowa. Away from the daily influence of his mother, he discovered his enthusiasm for the legal profession, and after graduating, stayed on at the University of Iowa to earn his law degree. That’s when he met his future wife, Bambi.
You learned to work harder without your mom being around in college.
You know, at some point for a guy, you have to realize that he’s doing this work not for Mom and Dad; doing this work for you and your future. And then, I went to law school.
How was law school for you?
I loved law school. Actually, see, about my junior year in college, I had that snap-on moment, when I realized if I was gonna be somebody, I had to do it for myself.
And you wanted to be somebody.
Yeah. I wanted to be successful.
Had you met Bambi at that time?
Nope. Met Bambi when I was in law school. So, I ended up at the University of Iowa, and then I got serious about career, started to be a better student in college, and then did well in law school. And by this time, I had known Bambi. Bambi was from San Juan, Puerto Rico; she was also in Iowa City, ‘cause her family, her grandparents were all from Iowa. And it was very cold, and I knew I had to get out of the cold. So, I thought I was gonna go to work in Florida or California. And it was like freezing, and I went through the law directory and found relatively good-sized law firms in Honolulu.
You were looking, because of the warmth factor?
Oh, yeah. I was looking because I had to get out of the cold.
It’s a long way to go out of the cold.
Oh; yeah, it is. And you know, San Diego or Florida would have been closer. My mom reminded me about that a lot of times. But I sent a resume with my photograph to ten law firms in Hawaii. And one wrote back and said, Here’s a summer job.
Did you know anybody in the islands?
I knew nobody.
Huh.
I knew a couple people that had been here and said it was a really nice place. By then, Bambi’s parents, who were living in San Juan, Puerto Rico, they left Iowa and went to San Juan, Puerto Rico. They thought Hawaii was a wonderful place. I’d seen their movies, but I didn’t know anything about it. And so, I came for a summer with Bambi. We got married just before we came. And fell in love with it. I got off the plane and said, Oh, my god.
And did she feel the same way? Because that often does not happen.
No. See, Bambi’s parents lived in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We lived in a little walkup apartment in Waikiki. And it would cost twenty-two dollars a minute for her to call Puerto Rico.
Oh …
So, she’d, like, have to make an outline of what she was gonna talk about, and then talk for no more than three minutes. So, this was a really nice place, but it was too far away for Bambi. And that’s how Bambi felt.
How did you work that out?
Bambi is one of the most rational people I’ve ever known. And I said, How about we go to Hawaii for a year? That sounded really rational to me. And she says, Okay, that’s fine, we’ll go for a year.
But you wanted to be there longer, or you didn’t know?
Well, I had no idea how it was gonna work out in the long run. But I wanted to go back; that was for sure. And so, we came back for a year. Then we re-upped one year at a time for seven or eight years, and then my oldest son was born. And our roots in the community really grew with Jason being born.
What year was that?
’77. So, came in ’72, like five years later, Jason’s born, and all of a sudden …
Your roots go deep.
Yeah. ‘Cause you know, you’re at Kapiolani, you’re meeting all these other new parents. You have all the kid stuff going on.
Well, it could have gone the other way, because many people move back to the mainland when they have children, and their parents want to see the grandkids.
Right. I was lucky that Bambi’s parents and my parents were not afraid of travel, and did come. Bambi, ‘cause she was from San Juan, Puerto Rico, adjusted to Hawaii a little quicker than the average bear. And Hawaii was a good place.
So, where did you begin developing friends? Was it in the law firm?
Yeah; for sure. It was first law partners, and then, it was clients, and clients became my friends. And it’s like … I think of like, three people. I think of Henry Wong from Kaneohe Ranch, I think of Laura Thompson, and I think of Laura’s mom Clarinda Lucas. And I would come home from a trip and they would say, Welcome home. And it was, like, that simple. It was like … yeah, I guess it’s home.
What about acculturation? We do things here that other people don’t do.
See, I always liked the people. I mean, I think I stayed because of the people. And I really got to know some of the people just from kids and contacts. I got to know more people as my jobs grew. I’ve always liked people, and just made an awful lot of friends here.
The grandfather of Mitch D’Olier’s wife gave D’Olier advice about raising his children. He never forgot this guidance, and while he was building his practice at Goodsill, Anderson, Quinn & Stifle—that’s’ a Honolulu law firm, he made sure that he had time to spend not only with his three sons, but with other young people as well.
Bambi’s grandfather, my wife’s grandfather told me when I was an impressionable twenty-six-year-old; he said, Mitch, you’re gonna have a very involved career, there’s gonna be a lot that the world’s gonna want you to do. Don’t miss your children. And then, he looked me in the eye and cried a little bit and said, I missed my kids. ‘Cause he was bringing penicillin to Iowa, and doing surgery at a time when medicine was really changing.
And he thought he was doing the right thing, because he was working hard?
No question; no question. And as a result, I spent a lot more time with my kids than I would have otherwise. And I was really lucky to have mentors that tolerated that throughout my career. But I coached soccer and baseball for seventeen years in East Honolulu, so I knew a lot of kids.
You had really demanding jobs your entire career, as a lawyer and as an executive.
I had fun jobs.
But I don’t know how you managed to get time to do afternoon coaching and to spend the type of time that I understand you did.
Okay; so some of it was, I had tolerant employers, and I had to get the work done.
But I don’t think you got a break on how much work you did; right?
No; I didn’t get a break on how much work I did.
So, how did you do it?
I did it in the evenings, and I did it on Saturdays when I wasn’t coaching. I did it on extra time. And probably, Bambi sacrificed a little bit and was very supportive of me doing that.
‘Cause she gave up her weekends.
Yeah. ‘Cause, like, it would chew into into some of my personal time. You know, I’d put the kids to bed, and then I’d work a little bit. And then, I was lucky enough as different opportunities came along. When I talked to other people about the opportunities, I said, You know, I’m a coach, and I really need to do that. And I remember John and Peter Ueberroth looking at me and saying, Well, will you have your cell phone with you when you’re coaching? Then we think that’s okay.
Would you have been prepared to say, I’m not gonna take that job if I can’t coach?
If I couldn’t have been able to continue the things I was doing in the community, including coaching, I would not have taken jobs. That was who I was.
But nobody made you take that walk.
And that’s a big blessing.
I think that’s ‘cause they weren’t really missing out on anything; right? You were getting all that work done. I heard you had more billable hours than anybody else.
That was true for a couple years.
And you were coaching at the time?
Right. But see, my partners, as long as I was getting my work done, were very supportive.
It’s like doing the same thing, plus coaching.
Right. Yeah; it is. That’s right.
So, how many days a week was that?
Well, you coach couple days a week, and then you’d do Saturday games.
So, spare time; how much?
Oh, how much time would it chew up?
M-hm.
It would chew up an hour and a half two days a week, and then three hours on Saturday or Sunday. Mostly Saturday.
Seems like it would take longer, because there’d be consultations with parents and, you know.
Well, didn’t take that much longer. I mean, you’d have a meeting, you’d tell parents what it was about. You’d try make kids have a good experience in sports, which was really what I was about. I wasn’t the greatest physical fitness coach in the whole wide world, but I wanted to make sure every young man that I became associated with left feeling good about himself.
Mitch D’Olier was legal counsel for Hawaiian Airlines at Goodsill Anderson when he was offered an opportunity in 1991 to leave his law firm and become president and chief operating officer of the airline. He accepted the position, knowing Hawaiian Airlines was undergoing financial difficulties, to say the least.
We had a negative net worth of two hundred and fifty-two million dollars. We had twenty million dollars in the bank, and we were losing fifty thousand dollars a day in cash. That was the starting point. And the question was, How will we keep it alive? And Bambi was a really good sport to let me do it. I knew I could go back and practice law. I wasn’t afraid that I wouldn’t have a job afterwards.
Why would you be drawn to something that was failing?
I think of myself as a little bit of a crusader. I thought it was really important for Hawaii to be served by an air carrier that served Hawaii from other places, and that decisions about transportation to and from this place were not made only in Dallas, Texas, Elk Grove Village, Illinois, and Atlanta. I thought we needed to make those decisions from here. Because I’m very convinced now we’re twenty-five hundred miles from anywhere, and we need air service.
So, you went in to fix it, because the community needs it.
I wanted to try to fix it, because I thought it was important for the State.
What kinds of things did you go through in trying to make that happen?
My hair is a different color as a result of my two years at Hawaiian Airlines. We had to downsize staff, which was very hard. We had to make financial decisions about what we were going to do. We were limited in our financial capacity. I mean, it’s like, one of my favorite stories is, when I was at the airline business with that bad financial situation, I had a hard time getting bankers to return my phone call. When I went to work for Victoria Ward, they’d do house calls on me. Can we come see you on Saturday at your house? I mean, it’s like just flipped around that way. It was a little bit afterwards that I realized how hard it was. And it’s a wonderful industry, and they were an incredible group of people that joined hands and held it together. And that we got to the opportunity we got is a tribute to all those people, many of whom stayed behind when I left.
How far did you take the airline?
We were providing bad service when I started. And I think when we finished, we were providing acceptable service levels. We weren’t always late.
Mitch D’Olier took over as president and chief executive officer of Victoria Ward after he left Hawaiian Airlines. He spent the next nine years developing Kakaako, which opened the door to a new job as president and CEO of Kaneohe Ranch Company, where he led the development of Kailua. He has since retired as the CEO, but has stayed on at the Harold K.L. Castle Foundation as board chair. He works on charitable causes, primarily public education.
When I was at Ward, I was asked by the Castle family to become a director of their foundation. And so, I said, yes, and participated in that philanthropy. And I watched Randy Moore, who was the leader at the time, come up with a wonderful idea about a principal’s leadership academy, and watched him create from an idea to an entity to funding, an academy that taught business principles to public school principals. And that was our start in public education. And it was that, and then I was a member of the Hawaii Business Roundtable. And the Business Roundtable’s biggest community activity, ‘cause they’re trying to build a better Hawaii, was public education. And so, it was a combination of the Castle Foundation opportunity, the Hawaii Business Roundtable, and then my mom was a public school teacher in a Title 1 school. I knew what that was like. And I can’t think of anything that we can do in Hawaii that’ll help us build a better Hawaii.
Or anything harder, it seems. Because it really does seem that progress is so slow. And then, by the time progress is made—
It’s really frustrating.
–the times have changed, and that’s no longer the right idea.
Well, we change our idea about what the right idea is a little too often. I think stay the course can really help with some of that. Public education is public education. But we’ve also seen a lot of enormous positives happen. And it’s like, there’s out-migration from private schools to public schools. People aren’t talking about that a lot.
What schools are they moving to?
They’re moving to charter schools, and they’re moving to public schools. ‘Cause there’s a perception that public schools are better.
And this migration you speak of; that’s not caused by, I’m broke, I really can’t afford private anymore?
It’s partly that. But it’s also partly people not being willing to stretch the way they were stretched, because schools are better. I tip my hat to every teacher in the State of Hawaii, to every principal, to every administrator, and to all the charter schools, ‘cause they do really hard work every day, and it’s really important. I was at a fundraiser for Teach for America last night in Kona, and I listened to four teachers and one student talk about their lives. And before I stood up to close, I had to wipe the tears out of my eyes, ‘cause I was so moved by what I heard. So, there’s a lot of that going on every day, and that’s what keeps me going and will keep me going on this whole thing, that’s what’ll do it.
Mitch D’Olier had a health scare in 2014. His faith, family, and positive attitude helped him through.
I did my normal colonoscopy last September 20th. And you wake up from your colonoscopy, and they show you the picture of your inside. And there’s this little ugly dark guy in there. And I’m like, What’s that? He said, Mitch, that’s a colon cancer tumor. And so, nine days later, I lost six inches of my colon in surgery. And so, I’m like the poster boy for why you should do your colonoscopy. ‘Cause all kinds of people don’t want to do it. I did it, I came out really well; I’m on the mend.
What went through your mind during those nine days? Did you do anything legally with your loved ones?
That’s a great question. Well, I told everybody, and my family was understandably concerned. You know, faith is a part of my life, so I’m a little bit like, Okay, so God, you’re doing this to me, and at least I think that all things work together for good. So I’m like, Okay, how come this is happening? And I just trusted God and went forward. But it was really an unbelievable opportunity for an outpouring of love and support in my direction from a whole lot of people. So emotionally, it was an incredibly affirming experience. Weekend before my surgery, my son from San Francisco came home out of nowhere. My three boys spent the weekend with me, with Bambi. It was awesome.
You said faith is a part of your life. What priority would you place it?
My priorities go like this. They go, faith, family, work. You have to determine what your faith is, or not have faith, and you think that through. And then, follow your heart as to where you conclude. And then, family, you need to take care of your family. And if there’s a person that’s done those two things, they can be incredibly useful in a business. And if there’s problems in those two, the problems are gonna get in the way. So, I told the employees, I want to be third; faith, family, work. The real job of a leader is to support their team. And if you support your team, your team will support you, especially in Hawaii. ‘Cause this is an incredible community of loyalty.
Did you always have the ranking that way; faith, family, work?
It evolved over time. I thought it through more and become more convicted of it over time. But even like when I started at Hawaiian Airlines … this is an interesting thing. One of the things I did is—I’m sorry. Okay; three thousand employees. I went from a law firm with about a hundred and thirty employees to three thousand employees. How do I tell everybody who I am? So, I did a video.
[CHUCKLE] You did?
[CHUCKLE] This was before You Tube and all this stuff. And we did a video with a camera, and we showed it in all the different stations. And one of the things that I mentioned in the video was that I worshiped at a church. And I probably had five hundred emails back on that subject. I go to church too, and I’m glad to know you go to church. And that started me in thinking that all through. ‘Cause there’s a lot of faith in this wonderful place.
When did your faith emerge?
A little bit Campus Crusade for Christ in college, a little bit going to church here. First, Central Union Church, then First Presbyterian Church, a little bit friends. Just over time. Probably been there all along, and I noticed it.
At the time of this conversation in 2015, Mitch D’Olier has retired from fulltime corporate executive work and is devoting his time and considerable energy to serving the community. Mahalo to Mitch D’Olier of Honolulu for sharing his stories with us, and mahalo to you for joining us. For PBS Hawaii and Long Story Short, I’m Leslie Wilcox. A hui hou.
For audio and written transcripts of all episodes of Long Story Short with Leslie Wilcox, visit PBSHawaii.org. To download free podcasts of Long Story Short with Leslie Wilcox, go to the Apple iTunes Store or visit PBSHawaii.org.
I told my kids, try to, to the extent they can, discover what they’re passionate about, and work in that arena.
The hard thing is finding out what you’re passionate about, sometimes.
I don’t know the answer to how to do that. What I do know is that it’s okay not to know, like when you’re in high school or when you’re in college if you’re not like, really sure. ‘Cause I’ve watched myself change a number of times, and the changes at least have worked out positively for me. And so, I think it’s okay not to know. And I also think to the extent you can tap into what your passions are, then you don’t have a job. Then, you’re working on your passion, and that’s a whole new kind of energy.
[END]
This series takes viewers on an enriching and entertaining “field trip for grown-ups” to some of the most intriguing European and North American cities in the world. Entertainment journalist Christine Van Blokland brings her passion and genuine curiosity for the arts, quirky characters, storytelling and lifelong learning to this new series. In each location, Christine explores the hidden histories in their art, architecture, museums, monuments, houses of worship and city parks.
Curious About… Victoria, British Columbia
Who was “A.B.C. Architect” and why did he design such a grand Parliament Building in Victoria? What is Fan Tan Alley, and what does it have to do with the 2nd oldest Chinatown in North America? How did an 11th and 12th century French, Spanish & Italian Romanesque-style castle, built for a Scottish self-made millionaire, become “Canada’s Castle?” Why isn’t there a sign above the main entrance to The Empress Hotel? And finally, as we take High Tea here, is it pinkies up or down?
Look back to 2000 and learn what has since happened in the Charleston antiques market. Highlights include Newcomb College vases, Fred Meyer photographs, and a Leon Julien Deschamps bronze. See which item is now worth $55,000-$60,000.
Journey back 15 years and learn how fantastic finds from Madison, WI, have fared in today’s market. Highlights include an 1875 Norwegian Hardanger fiddle, Winsor McCay comic art and an Eanger Irving Couse oil. See which item doubled in value to $80,000-$100,000.
Look back at memorable items appraised in Las Vegas in 2000. Highlights include
a collection of magic memorabilia, ca. 1925, a Shearer chest of drawers and an
album of John Thomson photos. Which item’s value jumped from $15,000-$20,000 to
$35,000-$45,000?
Air date: Mon., July 6, 8:00 pm
Discover how values have changed for appraisals from 15 years ago. Highlights
include a Navajo chief’s blanket, a Connecticut secretary and chair and a 1924
Charles Russell watercolor. Learn which item is now worth $125,000-$135,000.
This series takes viewers on an enriching and entertaining “field trip for grown-ups” to some of the most intriguing European and North American cities in the world. Entertainment journalist Christine Van Blokland brings her passion and genuine curiosity for the arts, quirky characters, storytelling, and lifelong learning to this new series. In each location, Christine explores the hidden histories in their art, architecture, museums, monuments, houses of worship and city parks.
Curious About…New York City
Why are the constellations backwards in Grand Central? Why are there acorns all over the place? Why does the Great Hall at the Met look like the Baths of Caracalla? Why is there a golden Diana statue in the middle of the Met, and what does that have to do with the General Sherman statue by The Plaza? Why is Rockefeller Center’s Atlas statue permanently grimacing at St. Patrick’s Cathedral? And what does he have to do with the Pieta inside? Christine tries to find out.
Original air date: Tues., Jun. 17, 2008
How much do you know about limu, seaweed or marine algae? Isabella Aiona Abbott may know more about it than anyone else. She learned about its many uses, varieties and their Hawaiian names from her mother who learned from her mother whose mother lived during the times of the kapu system, when women could gather limu but not eat or even touch taro.
Now a world-renowned expert on marine algae and Professor Emerita at the University of Hawai’i, Dr. Abbott joins Leslie Wilcox for an engaging conversation.
Transcript
Aloha no and mahalo for joining me for another Long Story Short. I’m Leslie Wilcox of PBS Hawaii. We’re about to sit down with the first native Hawaiian woman to earn a PhD in science. She’s studied, taught and written about seaweed; and has become a world-renowned expert on it. I think you’re really going to enjoy getting to know University of Hawai‘i Botany Professor Emerita Isabella Abbott.
Isabella Aiona Abbott, the first native Hawaiian woman to earn a doctoral degree in science, did so in 1950 at the University of California at Berkeley. Since then, Dr. Abbott has built an international reputation as a botanist. She is a top expert on limu.
You have a heavyweight reputation as the world’s foremost expert on marine algae.
That’s not true.
No?
No.
That you have the reputation or that you are the world’s foremost expert?
No. [chuckle] I know Central Pacific algae better than anybody, I’m sure, and the algae of California better than anyone, because I wrote the books for these two areas. Well, that’s a few hundred thousand miles there. Yeah. [chuckle] I would say that if you wanted to say that I am a specialist in the marine algae of the Central Pacific, I wouldn’t correct you there. But that’s because there’s so few of us. There—you know, the thousands of people who work on flowering plants; flowering plants mostly have the same kind of life history, so they become [SIGH] kind of boring. [chuckle] They make pretty flowers, they make nice smells; they taste good, many of them. But they’re not like seaweeds. Every one you pick up goes through life a different way. And I suppose it is because they live in a salty environment, and once upon a time maybe lived on marshy places, and therefore, influenced by freshwater, not by salt.
So you like the variety and the complexity.
Yes; m-hm. It’s a game; it’s a game. I bet with myself the whole time, from the time I cut it on the outside. I say, Oh, I think this might be in such-and-such a family, or something like that. And by the time I get to some magnification on the microscope, oh, no, you’re hundred percent wrong. [chuckle]
Well—
So let’s begin again, you know. I love my work. I couldn’t be luckier or happier than what I’m doing now. But, say, if I could go to the beach and not have to run in and look at the algae that are growing at that particular beach, that would be nice. But I don’t do that. [chuckle]
How did this all get started, your interest in seaweed?
My mother. My Hawaiian mother; she used to take us—myself and my younger brother mostly—to the beaches. And for us to run around on the beach, well, that was just her reason.
What beaches were these, where you were growing up?
Well, in Waikiki over by Ka‘alawai at Diamond Head, ‘Ewa Beach when we were small. And at Lahaina, my Hawaiian grandmother had a house on the beach. It wasn’t a big limu place, but it had enough so that—my mother knew every limu that was edible there. And I tell jokes about my mother, because it was easy for her. She knew all the edible ones, and gave you the Hawaiian names; never made a mistake. And so when I grew up, I put Latin names with those Hawaiian names. I never made a mistake either.
Was your mother exceptional, or was that common knowledge at that time in Hawai‘i?
I don’t know Leslie, that I would say it was common knowledge, but this is a loaded question. The women were the ones who knew the Hawaiian names. When Eleanor Williamson, who was a classmate at Kamehameha School, was working for Mrs. Pukui at the Bishop Museum for many years; she and I went around and interviewed different Hawaiian women on each of the islands. We had a grant to do this. And we talked to some in Hawaiian, and some in English, and I met a Hawaiian man. And I asked him, You know some Hawaiian names of limu? No, he said, go ask my auntie. And then, Go ask my mama; she’ll know too, but ask my auntie first. Is that because women were gatherers? They were the gatherers because of kapu. There were many things they—on land they could not eat including, and especially, taro. Taro is the body form of the god Kane. Women were not allowed to touch a taro plant in those days.
But at the time your mother was a young woman, there was no kapu system. But you’re saying that was a holdover from those times?
Oh, yes. And also, the knowledge pattern. She probably learned from her grandmother, who would be living when the kapu system was on.
So the women passed it on to the next women.
Yes. And to this day, I can meet young Hawaiian men. You know the name of this? No; ask my auntie. And the auntie usually knew. [chuckle]
And so you grew up with this knowledge, but it didn’t mean you were gonna become a great seaweed scientist. How did that happen?
Well, I always wanted to work on plants when I was at Kamehameha, I was in the seventh grade class that was the first seventh grade in that campus. Well, the campus was so new that they wanted the girls to work in the gardens which were planted in flowers of the same color, like the Blue Garden, the Yellow Garden, the Red Garden, White Garden, so on. And every Wednesday, every girl had to go out and work in the garden. And the principal of the school, Maude Schaeffer, was very instrumental in shaping my knowledge of Hawaiian names of plants going. And that was the first time anybody told me that the scientific name meant something, just like the Hawaiian names meant something. Limu kala, for example, which is a big brown seaweed, very common. Kala means to forgive. If I brush you as I walk past you, I’ll say, Kala mai, which means, forgive me, or excuse me. But kala also means spiny, and the little margins on the leaves of this particular brown alga are spiny. So it’s well- named. Culturally, this is probably the most famous seaweed in the world. I have made it famous, because the ho‘oponopono, which means to set things right, is based on everybody holding a piece of limu kala. The point is, you are to forgive everybody in your heart, in your head, that’s sitting in this circle, where there’s trouble in the family, or trouble somewhere. And out of the depth of your heart and your head, you forgive them. So when you leave the circle, everybody loves each other, everybody’s not gonna think of this shame you brought to the family, or whatever it was that brought you to this circle.
Dr. Isabella Abbott understands the Hawaiian cultural meanings of plants. She wrote a book, “La‘au Hawai‘i,” exploring links between plants and their symbolism in hula. She has a deep knowledge of “canoe plants,” the plants brought here by the earliest Hawaiians. She’d like to see Hawaii plants studied for their healing properties.
I’m very careful not to talk about medicinal plants. I might talk about herbs; I’ll change it to say herbal plants. And the reason is that doctors—I am not a medical doctor, and I’m not going to tell anybody that you should use this or that plant, because it’s good for this or that. I will tell you, yes, that there are some plants that are useful for various, specific things; but you have to know what you are doing. Let me tell you some examples. I taught a class over at University of Hawai‘i Hilo one time, and it was on invasive plants. And there was a haole woman who came, and she was just very eager to tell her story. And she said she came from the Midwest, and she found that she could live on forest plants near where she—where she actually did live. And so when she moved to Hawai‘i, she thought surely in this forest around here, I could find things to eat. So she went off without any food herself; she was going to live off the land. Two days later, she was calling for help on her cell phone. She had discovered a tree that had some interesting looking nuts.
M-hm.
And so she broke open the nuts and ate them; they tasted very good. But she had gotten into a kukui nut. And anybody who lives here knows that this is a laxative par excellence. Absolutely. And she was put in the hospital for two weeks. She just absolutely cleaned herself out, and all the bacteria as well, so there wasn’t anything to help her digest anything.
But if she’d known how to make good use of the plant.
Yes. If she knew how to use that plant, it is the most used medical plant for Hawaiians, for a whole—huge variety of things.
For example?
Cuts and bruises, sore throat. I hated to tell my mother that I had a sore throat, because she would get a kukui nut kernel and burn it, so that it would be black, and make charcoal, and then dip a wooden spatula into this charcoal, and say, Open your mouth. [chuckle] And she would put it in the back of my throat. I had that done to me many times.
Did it work?
I don’t know if it worked, but maybe you might say you would hope it would work.
[chuckle] So I would have to do it again.
You were motivated to feel better. [chuckle]
Yes. And so those are two examples. But kukui has a lot of toxic elements in it. But like many medicines, digitalis being one of them, if you know how to control the dosage, it will work for you. If you don’t know how to control the dosage, it might kill you.
What about noni; you hear so many people singing the praises of noni, and selling the bottles to keep in your refrigerator. How good is it?
[chuckle] I can only answer something like that depending on what I know about it. And what I know was either what my mother told me, or some other Hawaiian lady told me about using noni. For the Hawaiians, it was all externally used. Like well, you have a bruise on your wrist; so you put a noni leaf on an open fire, sort of just scorch it, and then put it around your wrist. As it is cooling down, the goodies in the leaf will leak out onto your wrist, and that’s supposed to help you. I never read anything about taking it internally. I don’t think that you could depend on it as being useful, and I have no experience with it myself. I’m not trying to get out of answering; it’s just to tell you know what I know. Well, Dr. Henry Ayau, who was a Hawaiian medical doctor, and the way he practiced herbal medicine, I would give him a doctor’s appellation. He was a very nice man, and very conscientious. But he used some plants that were not Hawaiian plants; they were introduced to Hawai‘i as early as 1890. The Board of Forestry keeps records; at that time, they kept records about when different species were found in Hawai‘i. And he said his grandmother was the one who taught him about that particular herb. But mostly, he used the ones that the Hawaiians or the Polynesians who became Hawaiians brought with them. And those are the ones I tell people about, when I know about them. Because they are my test; people have been using those since maybe the year 600 AD, when they came.
What are those? What are those ones that have been used for so very long?
They’re mostly weeds; what we would call weeds. Something called ihi, I-H-I, which is a little, small creeping little plant; and it’s a little acid. And I think the little acid taste is what makes you think it’s going to work for you. Does it? I don’t know, but it can’t hurt you; that’s my point. [chuckle] They have been tested over these many years, and nobody died from them, that I know about. So they’re—to me, I can’t say that they’re useful, but I know they won’t kill you. Whereas, some others might be useful, and you don’t know anything about their background, no tests by humans for six hundred plus, two thousand eight years [chuckle]. You would think they’re quite safe. Now, what would one of those be? Uhaloa is one of them. Almost any Hawaiian of age that you would meet, you—and you ask them, Do you use any Hawaiian medicinal plants? Oh, yeah. Well, what one? The laukahi, they tell you; it’s this little plant thing, about this big, for boils and infected knees, mostly. And, Oh, why uhaloa? Well, sore throat;
And you’re telling me there hasn’t been a rigorous scientific testing of them to see if they really do have an effect as—
I love the way you use the word rigorous, because that is exactly the condition. People have dabbled at trying to find the ingredient or settle ingredients that make this possible as a medicinal plant. And not really paid strict attention to it, rigorous attention to it. And doing what the scientists do, which is to replicate what you found out, that is the key of science—not once, not twice, but you did it ten times or a hundred times, and it always came out that way. Then it’s safe for you to use.
Have you ever put your scientific attention to checking out rigorously those plants?
No. Because I’m not a good enough chemist for that. You have to be a biochemist to do that,
Well, let’s talk about what you’re good at; which is seaweed.
Yes. [chuckle]
What have you done in the way of seaweed research?
What I’m known for is naming plants, collecting plants, and either putting them into a classification where they’re already known; and maybe widely known, maybe known all over the world except in Hawai‘i. Or in this case, I might suspect it was an invasive species. Well, it then means a lot of microscope work to try to find out its life history, because how it goes through life history determines where you put it in the system of classification. So it requires microscope work. And hit the books; because the answer might be in the book that you never thought to look in.
Dr. Isabella Abbott, Professor Emerita in Botany at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa and retired Professor of Biological Sciences from Stanford University, has had many opportunities to name marine algae for the text books and for posterity.
Well, I just named one after the captain of the ship, Hi‘ialakai, which I named, by the way. It’s a NOAA ship, and it’s the only biological oceangoing laboratory ship in the NOAA fleet. And its home port is Honolulu. So it goes up to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
Are there limu named after you?
Quite a few, but you can’t name them after yourself, of course. [chuckle]
So somebody else named them after you?
Uh-huh. I even have a genus named after me; Abbottella, which means a little Abbott. [chuckle]
And who named these algaes after you?
This one was named by a colleague who is the second author of Marine Algae of California.
Had you helped him with that particular project?
Mm-mm.
Or he just respected you, and wanted to name—
Yes, the—
–something after you?
The second; m-hm.
Does that make you feel—I mean, do you look it up sometimes and say, Wow, that’s my name in the genus?
No.
[chuckle]
Whenever I run into that part of the alphabet, Abbott, Abbottella, would be a genus with that name. And so it’d be first in the slide box, probably. I take it out and look at it; it’s such a pretty little thing. You’d never— [chuckle] –find it. It’s tiny, but it’s so pretty.
A consummate researcher, Dr. Isabella Abbott was awarded a highly regarded prize in science, the Gilbert Morgan Smith Medal from the National Academy of Sciences.
In that photo that you have that shows your colleagues and competitors for this very prestigious award that you won in 1997, you are the only woman and you were the only minority among this large group of very distinguished scientists.
Well, I don’t think that’s surprising. But to get through, you can imagine I could have had my nose out of joint, felt like a second class citizen, and so on, at that point, if I had been brought up differently. But I have a lot of brothers,
That’s a stunning visual representation, though; the fact that you’re the only woman there.
M-hm.
Everybody else is Caucasian, and male. But that never bothered you, that you were sort of one of a kind?
No.
At that level.
No. What would it gain me? Nothing; I would be the same person I am, and you know, continue to find new species of algae or have a good time in life. [chuckle] That’s what I do best, those two things. [chuckle]
Isabella Aiona Abbott, a woman who loves her life’s work, was born to a mother of 100% Hawaiian ancestry and a Chinese immigrant father in Hana, Maui.
My father came over as a plantation laborer from South China. And one of the reasons he came, he said, because there were no levies or dams to prevent the water from the rains in the wintertime that would wipe out their rice crop, entire crops, year after year. And they heard that in the north, Peking, at that time, there was an empress who was building a marble boat for a lake. And why were they spending money on something like that, when they could maybe help the farmers in South China. And so it’s hopeless, you couldn’t fight it at that time. So he left when he had a chance, go to the Sandwich Islands. In Chinese, it’s called the Fragrant Islands because of sandalwood and make a fortune there, or just find out what it’s like. So he was used to backbreaking labor work in the fields, and he worked on the Kipahulu Sugar Plantation.
He came as a young man by himself?
With his brother, who was twenty years old and my father was eighteen at that time. And they both worked, I think it’s five years, then you could pay the planters back for your transportation and be free. You could go do anything you wanted to. He had several colleagues that came over in the same way, and worked in the same plantation. And one of them was Ah Ping, who lived in Puko‘o, Moloka‘i. And he was just as well known on Moloka‘i, as my father was known in Hana; they’d both opened little stores and became the magnates of all the Hawaiians around. [chuckle] So your father actually opened a store that competed against the plantation store in Hana— Yes. Which had to have raised their ire, that competition. But how well did he do against the authorized— In five years, the plantation closed its store, and it remained closed as long as my father was there. What was his secret? I think the secret was him. He was a warm, friendly person. He learned Hawaiian before he learned English, and was fluent in Hawaiian. That’s one of the reasons I learned Hawaiian, because it irritated me that he and my mother would be talking in Hawaiian all the time. Well, I want to know what they’re talking about, you know. [chuckle] So I listened very hard, and I was quite fluent in Hawaiian before I went to the mainland. You picked it up by eavesdropping? M-hm. M-m. And dictionary. [chuckle]
Your mother gave you a Hawaiian name. What is that name?
Kauakea, Kauakea. And when I was in Hana a few years ago, I was looking out on the ocean, and the sun was coming up at the horizon. Mind you, this is Maui; it wasn’t coming up in Haleakala Crater, which is what I was brought up to believe. Anyway; and then it started to rain. And the rain looked like fine mist or clouds, and it was moving toward the land. And that was what I knew I was named after, Kauakea, white rain of Hana. And it’s used as a geological name, like you would have a name of a wind, kamakani. This would be the name of a rain. And the reason for this is, geologically speaking, Haleakala is very close to the coast at that particular place; less than a mile, I’d say. So it prevents—it’s high enough to prevent the rain coming from the opposite side, from the mountains into the sea.
So even in describing your Hawaiian name, you give me a scientific explanation.
Do you apply science to everything you do?
[chuckle] I’m maybe not aware of it, but yes, I do. And some Hawaiians get tired of me—
[chuckle]
–sometimes and say, Oh, that’s because she’s a Western scientist.
What’s your answer to that?
I can’t help it. I was trained that way.
Isabella Abbott says she only gives opinions on things she knows. The first native Hawaiian woman to earn a PhD in science, the first woman faculty member of Stanford University’s biological sciences department, leading world expert on Central Pacific marine algae, she’s going to hit ninety soon and she’s still conducting high-level research at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. Mahalo piha to Dr. Isabella Abbott, and to you, for joining me for this Long Story Short. Please join me again, next time. I’m Leslie Wilcox of PBS Hawaii. A hui hou kakou!
You know the most amazing things. I remember a conversation you and I were having, and everybody in the room stopped still, as you said you knew how to make the foam on beer stand up. Remember that?
Yes. You add a little alginate, which is an extract of kelps, to the liquid. And stir it up; or shake it up if it’s in the bottle. And then you take off the top, and here comes the foam. The longer it stands up, the better you like your beer. Something about it; I don’t know what, ‘cause I don’t drink beer. But that’s what they all came to hear about. I was very amused.
And the advertising folks would love to know that.
Yes. [chuckle]