Grandma's Excited to Write a Book!: Seventy-Seven Is a Fine Age to Write a Book

By Ann Githere

Writing a book is an exciting project especially when the topic is so close to home. My life story, how exciting can that be? I found it very appealing. But was there something about my story that would appeal to anyone else? Born a twin in Honolulu, Hawaii, just before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, I experienced a truly loving family. My dad and mom, John, and Ella Mendiola loved each other, and it rubbed off on all of us. We all went to Catholic schools, and Star of the Sea became the focal point of our lives. The Marist Fathers and the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur were part of our family. So it was that I became a Sister of Notre Dame, went off to serve God in California and back in Hawaii, and finally, across the world at the equator in Kenya. Then the whole world changed again for me. I exchanged the nun's veil for the bride's veil! God had decided to reward me for my twenty years of faithful service. He gave me Gilbert Gicaru Githere. And I said, "Thank You, God. Mahalo nui loa."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9781645690870

Book preview

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Grandma’s

Excited to

Write a Book!

Seventy-Seven Is a Fine Age to Write a Book

ANN GITHERE

ISBN 978-1-64569-086-3 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64569-087-0 (digital)

Copyright © 2019 by Ann Githere

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

To my father and mother, John and Ella Mendiola;

our rewards, Izzy and Bella;

to my reward, Dr. Gilbert Githere;

and to everyone who has been a part of the story of my life

especially the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur and

all the hundreds of children I have ever taught.

Ann’s Celestial Road Map

In order to travel along the way through my life story, you will be moving throughout the universe, literally passing by continents, the equator, stars, constellations, the sun, the black hole, planets, and other celestial bodies. I decided to make a kind of universal road map for you. Yes, the titles of my chapters will be your guide through any labyrinthine passage.

Chapter 1: In the Beginning

Chapter 2: Important Events Are about to Happen

Chapter 3: My Middle Life Inside Middle Earth

Chapter 4: Breaking through the Earth’s Crust

Chapter 5: The First Set of Years Among the Stars

Chapter 6: Across the Pacific to California: Around One Side of Middle Earth

Chapter 7: Getting to the Real Center at the Equator

Chapter 8: The Most Special Kenyan Experience: The Pivotal Point of My Life

Chapter 9: Starting Our Kenyan Family: The Earth Was Never Brighter

Chapter 10: Returning to Hawaii: The Second Set of Years Among the Stars

Chapter 11: The Last Set of Years Among the Stars

Chapter 12: And Now Today

Conclusion

Preface

You should write a book, some of my friends had told me. I could write a book. After all, I am a recently retired English teacher. I will write a book!

My decision was made at 2:30 a.m. on September 5, 2017. For some reason, I was awake early that morning, thinking about occasions in my life that I remember with great happiness. So many of my friends and acquaintances had encouraged me to write down all the stories I had told them about my interesting life. Now that I’m more than three-quarters of a century old, I think it’s about time that I did it. So where do I start? Obviously, at the beginning. My beginning starts before I was born with my parents, John and Ella Mendiola.

Get ready, everybody. Here I go! It should be easy reading. You’ll find a casual, lighthearted style of writing with running commentary from the author—simply my story, my autobiography. This is my memory, as I remember all the events and people who have touched my life, in Hawaii, California, and Kenya.

Mahalo. Thank you. Asante sana.

Chapter 1

In the Beginning

I remember when I was in the seventh grade at Star of the Sea School. My teacher, Sr. Gertrude, SND, had entered me in a speech contest. The theme was I Am an American and I Speak for Democracy. I remember writing about my dad being an Army veteran and member of the Royal Hawaiian Band who saw my mom in the audience at Kapiolani Park. Of course, they fell in love and were soon married, and they began raising an All-American family. I was their first child and sorry to say my twin sister Mary did not survive for more than one day. After writing the whole speech, I practiced it at home and in school, in front of the other kids. They all clapped for me, and Sr. Gertrude was really happy. My performance at the all-school competition was great, and I won the first-place trophy.

Uh-oh, here I need to stop for my first rethink or re-remember because I just remembered that that was not the speech contest in which I gave my democracy speech. Actually, the American speech was when I was in high school. I gave it as a high school senior, and it was over the PA system. And it wasn’t Sr. Gertrude; it was Sr. Superior Martina who helped me with that speech. I now remember that seventh grade talk was a fun one. It was The Courtship of Miles Standish taken right out of the Voyages in English textbook that we had in school. I distinctly remember the last lines of the poem. John Alden wanted to marry Priscilla himself, but he was sent as an emissary by his boss to ask for her hand in marriage for Miles Standish. However, Priscilla was wise enough to know that it was John who really loved her, so the last lines I remember were spoken by Priscilla where she says, Why don’t you speak for yourself, John? And the rest is history—American history.

That was the start of my career of entering all the speech competitions around that year in school and years throughout my high school and college time, including plays like Little Women and The Merchant of Venice, and in college, Our Town. Also, I was a kind of disc jockey radio commentator for a local radio station during high school called Teen Town Topics. The radio station was KGU in the old Advertiser building on Kapiolani Boulevard. I think they still use that building to do part of the Hawaii Five-O filming of their offices. It was lots of work but always fun. Sister always made it fun for us. It must have been around that time that I decided I wanted to be an actress. Sure enough, I am!

As a little insert here, I’d like to say something about my twin, Mary. We were born on November 12, 1939. After one day, Mary went back to heaven; and in a way, I’m kind of getting excited because pretty soon, I think, I’ll be seeing her again. That would be a happy thing, seeing Mary and God on the same day—how exciting! Don’t worry, family, I’m not planning on leaving soon! I want to be around for a long, long time yet. I still have a storybook I want to write for my granddaughter, Isabella.

As I was saying, with Mary gone back to heaven, I was an only child for about six years before my next sister was born. I have to say that my youth consisted of many happy days in my family that turned into many happy years together. Besides my twin sister Mary, I had two other sisters, Ellen Pualani and Martha Ululani. We had another sister named Therese Analani. The Earth wasn’t ready for her, so she decided to go back to heaven right away to God. Our sadness turned to joy when we discovered that Mom’s next pregnancy was going to be a brother, the first brother in our family! Our joy was tempered just a little bit when we found out that John would be a Down syndrome baby. But then, when John was born, we were so happy we felt that God chose our family especially to bring John into the world. We have been proud and grateful ever since. John’s story is a whole narrative in itself.

When growing up, I’ve often wondered at what age we start remembering what happened in our early childhood days. I remember all the countless birthday parties because Dad had a movie camera, and everything was kept in movies to enjoy forever! In fact, a few years ago, we put all the old films together in a video format. Would you care to see them?

Actually, here I think I need to tell you about my full immediate family, all of my sisters. Besides Pualani, Ululani, and myself, Piilani, there were also Nani and Honey. Nani was four years older than I, and Honey was eight years older than I. So you see, even though I was my mom’s first born, I wasn’t the oldest one in the family. I didn’t have the advantages of the first born getting all the good stuff. I had hand-me-downs. I had to get a yearbook that went to Honey first, and then after that, Nani and then me. Nevertheless, life was good for me because my parents loved me. I was their first child after all. My parents loved us all, and I loved my two big sisters, Nani and Honey. In Hawaiian families, there often seem to be extra people around. They are all a part of the family, the ohana.

A very important person in my family was my Grandma Anna on Dad’s side. The reason I didn’t say that she was Dad’s mom is another whole story. Dad was born to Grandma Martha on Maui, and her sister Anna Mendiola adopted Dad and brought him to Honolulu to live. That is how I had my Grandma Anna here in Honolulu. By the way, Grandma Martha, I called her Small Grandma for the obvious reason that she was smaller than her sister Anna. I remember visiting her several times in Maui where we kids used to roll down a grassy hill in Paia, above where the sugar cane train rolled by and then we had a great time grabbing and eating sugar cane that fell off the train. Meanwhile, Grandma Anna was raising Nani and Honey from another branch of the family. John Mendiola and Ella Wittrock Mendiola had one big happy family living at 1221 Center Street, Honolulu, Hawaii.

Now I want to tell you more about my Grandma Anna. I remember feeling very close to her; I loved her so much. My mother worked full time for the government and so Grandma took care of me. In fact, she did so much for me. I remember that she dressed me, braided my hair, and took me to school every morning. My teacher never met my mother. One day, my mother came to school to pick me up to take me to a relative’s funeral. She said to Sister that she had come to pick up Ann, and Sr. Mary Beatrice said back to my mother, Does Ann know you? Well, my mother was so mad she almost took me out of school forever! But Grandma came along and smoothed things over.

Another time at school, when I was in the first grade with Sr. Mary Beatrice, SSCC, Sister showed my grandma how to make rag curls on my head. First, Grandma took the cloth rags and pieces of hair, and was shown how to wind the two together. After she did that about a dozen times, it was finished. Then when she pulled all of them out the next day, I was beautiful with all the curly locks, like Shirley Temple. I seem to remember that we were getting all dressed up to perform in a tap dance recital there at St. Patrick’s School. It was fun, I guess; and I know I had beautiful curls, thanks to Sister and Grandma. I’m not sure if it was for the same show because Grandma herself was in the performance at my school at St Patrick’s also. If you can picture a large-size Hawaiian lei seller with her hair rolled in a bun at the top of her head at the boat pier, that’s my grandma. She didn’t sell lei, but she looked like a lei seller. She was so beautiful. Anyway, she performed a comic hula with a group of senior friends. The whole show was great fun, and I was so proud of my grandma. Thinking about Grandma Anna makes me happy.

Now I must tell you about the most wonderful parents in the whole wide world. Yes, you guessed it—my parents John and Ella! I can see why Mom fell for Dad so fast in his smart white Royal Hawaiian Band uniform. With his handsome Royal Hawaiian looks, he was a knockout. With his ethnic combination of Hawaiian, Chinese, and English, he was very strikingly good looking. How in the world could Mom resist? Mom herself was good looking too, with a twinkle in her eye and that charming smile on her lips. She herself was Danish Hawaiian. I think Hawaiian and any other ethnic group make a beautiful combination for good looks in a human being. Of course, I admit I’m a little bit prejudiced that way, don’t you think? Anyway, I’m not saying that one’s physical beauty is more important than one’s beautiful character, but my mom and Dad had it all! If you knew them, you would agree.

Now I think I’ll tell you something about my mom being Danish. Somewhere around the late 1880s in Hana, Maui, there was a contingent of Danish people. They were first generation Danish who sailed from Denmark. Most of them were involved in some way in the sugar plantations. That was the case of my mother’s grandfather, Frederick Wittrock, with Susan Kepano, a Hawaiian lady from Hana. Together, they raised several children, among whom was George. The young George met and married Piilani Ua of Hana. They became the parents of my mom and her two sisters Dorothea and Augusta, and one brother Freddy. By then, the family was living in Honolulu. Sometime after that, my grandfather George was ill and had to be sent away. Also ill was one of his sisters, Augusta, who had been married to William Kekapa. With the two ill spouses sent away to Molokai, the two spouses left behind had each other, and they married to raise the family. By the time I came along, all I could hear was my mom and her sisters and brother calling Grandpa William uncle. That was confusing to me, and I wondered why. But now you can figure it out from what I’ve already told you. Yes, that’s right. He was my grandpa, but he was their uncle. So now, that’s simple, isn’t it?

As much as I do remember growing up with Grandpa Kekapa, I have faint remembrances of Grandma Piilani Wittrock-Kekapa. One thing I learned about her was that she must have been alive when I was born because she definitely wanted me to be named after her, not after Grandma Anna Mendiola. Happily, I was named Ann Piilani, and everybody was satisfied. And as I said, when I was old enough to remember, it was mostly Grandma Piilani’s house I recall rather than herself living in it.

What about Dad’s story? Dad went to school as a student of St. Louis College when it was downtown, somewhere near Chinatown. Although it was an elementary school, it was run by a French order of Marianist Priests and Brothers; thus, the word college was used. Dad was always a staunch, faithful Catholic, and it rubbed off on the rest of our family.

While at St. Louis, Dad played the flute and piccolo in the school band. I guess it’s not surprising that he played in the band in the Army days, and then after the service, he joined the Royal Hawaiian Band of the City and County of Honolulu. I remember going to all the Sunday afternoon concerts at Kapiolani Park and going to the Aloha Week parades in which Dad led the band with his long shiny baton and with us kids all shouting, Daddy, Daddy, as he walked by. We were so proud that that was our dad! There were all those concerts played around the neighborhood parks around the island. The band also played at the opening days of our carnivals at Star of the Sea. And, of course, all the kids recognized Mr. Mendiola playing his flute in the front row, cheered, and clapped for him each time he played. I was so proud.

As Dad was such a strong Catholic when he married Mom, she decided to convert to Catholicism herself. The two of them were such fervent Catholics that they were an example to everybody especially our family, both immediate and extended. Besides regular Sunday Mass, I remember going very often to Sunday afternoon Benediction service. At first, St. Patrick Church was our parish. But in 1946, Star of the Sea Parish started, so we transferred to our new parish. For anything important or extra going on in our parish, Star of the Sea, you could depend on the Mendiola family being right there. I would even say that Dad just about built Star of the Sea Church. The Marist Fathers (Father Edward Donze, SM, first pastor, followed by Father Joseph Robeck, SM) were very grateful for all that Dad did, all the committees he was on, all the work he did. He was even in the famous Club 51 as a founding member. When the laity took a more active part in leading the liturgy in church, there was Dad. At Sunday services, for more than one Mass, he was the song leader and the liturgy lector. Then after Mass, he brought the Fathers home to our house for breakfast. That was another reason why the Marist Fathers were so close to our family. Sometimes, Father Dennis Steik or Father John Sullivan would say Mass at our house, and they would let John be the altar boy. That was thrilling for him and made the whole family very happy. Yes, the Marist Fathers hold a very special place in the hearts of each member of my family.

Now there was something I wondered about that I would like to clear up. As much as my family was always Catholic, I wondered why, when I was growing up, my grandmother was with Nani and Honey, living at Protestant Kawaiahao Church. So I recently decided to ask Nani to fill in for me. This was what she told me. When I was a toddler, I spent the time playing on the grounds of Kawaiahao Church because Grandma Anna, by then, was in a second marriage as the wife of the caretaker George Lonohiwa. George was the uncle of Molly, Nani’s mom who had given her child to Grandma Anna to raise, so that was how Nani was in the picture. Also living there was Honey. She came from another branch of the family. This time, it was Grandma and her sister Rose. From her side of the family, Honey came, joining our family for Grandma Anna to take care of. Around that time, our whole family moved together to 1221 Center Street, at the top of the hill in Kaimuki; and in 1946, we all joined Star of the Sea Parish.

The next bit I am going to rethink and re-remember about is like a branch from the family tree. I promise I won’t plant the whole tree. Since I’ve told you about Grandma Anna, her sister Martha, and her sister Rose all connected, now I can tell you of one more sister of Grandma Anna, Grandma Elizabeth. For the longest time, I thought Auntie Elizabeth’s name was Dia, only to discover her name was Elizabeth and we were just calling her Auntie Dear. Anyway, she was married to the famous blind musician, Johnny Almeida, whose son, Pua, married my mom’s sister Augusta, making Uncle Pua cousin to my dad. Another family connection was Hawaiian musician Billy Hewlen’s brother Robert married Aunty Dorothea, Mom’s sister. How’s that for one big happy ohana? Lots of music in the