183CathyRoland.mp3

otter.ai

Summer 2021

yes

Riley Donovan

183CathyRoland - created 2009
Mon, 8/9 3:23PM • 44:16
Description: This historical talk describes in detail the history of Hawaiians on the BC coast, as well as some of the history of Hawaii itself and its’ interaction with American colonists. Cathy Roland also talks in depth about her family’s trip to Hawaii, their reconnection with family roots, and the difficulties of recording history in an oral history culture. A very useful general overview of the Hawaiians on Salt Spring Island.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Kanakas, Hawaiians, Hawaii, Salt Spring Island, Hudson’s Bay Company, South End, Naukanas, William Naukana, Rolands, Cathy Roland, Russel island, Portland island, fur trade, oral history

SPEAKERS
Cathy Roland, Audience member, Unknown

Cathy Roland 00:00
Many people of diverse cultures came to Salt Spring Island in the mid 1800s. And it's an interest to all of us. The newcomers, the old timers people have lived here for many years. To know why these people came. What was their challenges? How did they manage in those early years? So, the Historical Society has put on a program today to bring this up on some of the Hawaiian culture. What they were like, what did they face and how was their days. Our speaker is well qualified. She's born on Salt Spring Island. She is from the Hawaiian culture. Her dad, Jack Roland, and I'm sure when I say the word Jack Roland, everyone will think of clam chowder. Those who knew jack Rowland, or his wonderful salmon barbecues, they gave so freely of his time and his talents. And Kathy's mom Nora she was born in main island. She was Nora Keen. I'm sure she spent most of her time on Salt Spring. And then she's still living on Salt Spring and she's here today. Welcome, Laura. We're so pleased. Cathy's well known in her own right. Cathy went to school here on Salt Spring, she graduated. And then she went on to sing. And I'm sure that you've heard her singing on Salt Spring, she sang in the United States, and she sang in Hawaii. She took an interest very young in her family history. And she gives a lot of that credit to her uncle Paul, while Roland was confined to a wheelchair. And so, he spent a lot of his time listening to family stories. And he doesn't just listen to them. He passed them on. He lived with Jack and Nora and their family and the children, his nieces and nephews absorbed all of this information. When he died in around 1985, Cathy accepted the challenge to put it all together to verify some of the information and to bring it to us. She's here today to share this information to us. Would you please welcome Cathy Roland?

Cathy Roland 02:23
Am I working? Switching over. Am I working? Am I working? I'm on, I'm powered up. Now we can now you can hear me? Yes, I can. Oh, well. I Can you all hear me? Everybody can hear me just fine. That's good. I made some notes. But it keeps me straight. You don't want to mix things up. Checking out history of genealogy is hard enough. We know anybody who's looked into the archives and tried to get things straight. It can be pretty confusing, sometimes trying to get it straight. But I think it's fairly safe to say as far as Hawaiians on this coast, it was the fur trade that brought them in. I hesitate to say to say the Hudson's Bay Company, because the Hudson's Bay Company really wasn't established here on the coast, until about the 1820s. And there I know there were Hawaiians here, pre-1811. So, they were here full 10 years, probably before the Hudson's Bay got here. And they were actually working in the fur trade. The Hudson's Bay Company established themselves in Canada when was 1617 and they controlled, probably about half of the Canada we know today: Northern Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, parts of the Northwest Territories. With that, I think they hit that Rocky Mountain Range and went "I think we'll stay out East here". But eventually, I think it was a German born American John Jacob Astor who set up the fur trade on the Pacific coast in the early 1800s before the Hudson's Bay Company got here. And that's, I think, what drew them here, because they knew the fur trade was happening here and they had to part of it, and being a huge company, it was very easy for them to once they get here, merge with small companies that were set up here. All became the Hudson's Bay Company in about 1821, I think they established here on the coast. Now my great grandfather was William Naukana, that's his picture down the back there and there's a few pictures of him in a lot of books that I'm sure you've seen somewhere down the road, Tom Koppel's The Kanakas back farther, the snapshots of Salt Spring. Lots of pictures of William Naukana around. He was brought here by the Hudson's Bay Company around about 1835 but he didn't come to Salt Spring first off, that seem to Fort Vancouver, which is at the mouth of the Columbia River. And Hudson's Bay established their main port there about 1825. And it became main centre for their trading. The Hawaiians that came there, mostly ran the fort. They had, I think the French Canadians, the voyageurs, French Canadians and Scottish descent, the native communities. They were out on the trap lines they were doing the actual trapping. In most cases, it was the Hawaiians that seemed to stay and run the fort. Someone had to stay home in the kettle on the fire. So, the Hawaiians seem very adept at that maybe this because coming from the warmer climes it was a little bit difficult to go out in the wintertime, trapping firs but it's so cold, so maybe they stayed behind, just because I'm staying inside. You guys go ahead. But the Hawaiians were very instrumental in running the forts and posts that were set up by the Hudson's Bay Company. They were, the Hudson's Bay Company expanded, it wasn't just fur trade after like, in the early 1820s to 18 30-40 somewhere in there it was mostly fur trade, but they did expand into agriculture. Huge agricultural centre, because they needed to supply the forts, needed to keep these people up and running, the forts ran all year round. So there had to be something to feed the people there. So, the Hawaiians Canada's gardens, the animals cleared land, to graze the animals. They were probably 50% Hawaiian labourers at Fort Vancouver at any given time. So, they received they almost, well, they were the majority living there at the time. The British who ran the camps via the Hudson's Bay, it was a British operation. They were definitely in the minority. There was very few British that stayed here on the coast, probably just the bosses, the bosses they were British, lots of French Canadian, lots of Scottish. But there was a major Hawaiian influence at that time. That's because, like a lot of people wonder how they got from Hawaii to here, it wasn't just the Hudson's Bay Company went out there looking for them to bring them back because they need to work here in their posts.

Cathy Roland 08:00
The fur trade between Britain and Canada started as I said, when they established themselves in the East, in the 1600s. When they got here to the coast, okay, now we have to get these furs from the coast back to England. Well, they could go overland, back across the Rockies to their major port in York factory, it's right on the Hudson Bay itself, and then back across the Atlantic, or come all the way down around South America and back up, and just the natural trade winds and currents take them from the south tip of South America across the lower Pacific and sweeps right past Hawaii, it's just the natural. When Captain James Cook, an adventurer he was not with the Hudson's Bay Company, he was an explorer. He sailed into (unintelligible) Bay on the big island of Hawaii. 1788, 1778. And once, once he stumbled onto that, like a lot of people, it's been said so many times that he discovered Hawaii. And you look at any of the Hawaiian history books built right in big print do not say he discovered, what he did is he discovered there was people already living there. But by doing so, all of a sudden, now there's this port out there that just became a major, major port for the merchant ships, the fur traders, anybody traveling through there because as I said, the trade winds the natural current take them right to Hawaii. They have fresh water, they have fruits, they have foods, they can winter there, if the weather's really bad. And then one of the leave it comes a little bit north to this coast and then straight down to where we are here. So, by, by 1808, I believe, King Kamehameha already reunited, or united the Hawaiian Islands under one roof under his rule, and he moved his major court to Honolulu. And at that time, there were already 1800 people there, it was a big happening harbour. 1808, on the West Coast here, we had John Jacob Astor, who was the American Fur Trading Company, a few fur traders, and a whole lot of native people. So, Hawaii was just like this major port, where the west coast of Canada was virtually uninhabited except for some fur traders. So, they, the Hawaiians to come here, it was an adventure, they were paid well, to work. Here, they were offered, three-year, five-year, ten-year contracts. And then they could go home. So, it wasn't as if they were taken away to never go home. So, I'm thinking, who's not gonna leave, who's not going to do that. The adventure alone would be enough to take me away. The British treated the Hawaiians very, very well. As I said, they offered them contracts to work for them. They struck a deal with the king, King Kamehameha at the time, there were so many people wanting to leave the islands, not wanting to leave, but wanting to work, or the adventure, whatever their reasons were for living leaving that the king, they started being a little more selective. And so, the British were paying for the Hawaiians to go and work for two or three years and then paying them in turn, and then returning them back, so it was a big deal for everybody. It worked well, but they were not servants. A lot of people think that they were not slaves, but they were stolen from their country and had to go. No, it was not that at all.

Cathy Roland 12:26
They lived at Fort Vancouver until 1840s. Then, they decided to put, the Oregon treaty happened, and they put the international boundary at the 49th parallel. There was a lot of speculation as to why the Hawaiians moved across the border. It's been said that they wanted to live on the Canadian side because it was run by a monarchy. And they understand the monarch system. It's been said that they were angry with the Hawaiian or with the Americans for what they were doing in their homelands. Well, some of these could be true, but I think that Hawaiians just, they knew, that they were following the Hudson's Bay Company because they were so well treated. The Hudson’s Bay Company were moving north to Fort Victoria. Fort Vancouver, as I said, settle on the other side of the border. And well back then, the Americans were really tough on the native people. And the Hawaiians were lumped in as, as the native people and so I think mostly they just wanted to get up across the border because they'd been so fairly treated by the British, so they wanted to stay with them. So, moving to Fort Victoria, in the 40s now you see that's when my great grandfather appeared, just, just prior to that. he arrived at 1835 on the barque Columbia, that's one of the Hudson's Bay ships and they arrived at Fort Vancouver. Fort Vancouver was already established. And he sort of I believe he worked there in the farming industry for the longest while but he became very interested in actually going out and in the fur trade, very few Hawaiians, as I said they stayed and (unintelligible). But he did get into some of the, he was the interpreter, he understood the native language quite easily and well, so it was easy for him to interpret a lot of the native language. It became what they call Chinook. It's a jargon that sort of encompasses a bit of English, French, Hawaiian, an (unintelligible) combined. And he could translate that very easily. He was a guide, he went out and learned the river, the Fraser and then the Columbia River, so that he could take parties of people out. That time there was a few settlers showing up, they wanted to go and see what there, and so that was majorly what he did at that time. He moved to Fort Victoria with the rest of them. Well, not, not all, a lot of Hawaiians did stay. But a majority of them did move From the San Juan Islands and Fort Vancouver up to Salt Spring and Portland islands.

Cathy Roland 16:01
My grandfather was Naukana, preempted one lot of Portland Island, it was divided into four and his good friend, John Palau got the second lot and a few years later they bought the remaining two lots, so between the two of them they owned Portland Island. It was it was sold to me that Sir James Douglas, who was, I think he was the chief factor at Fort Victoria for many years, I was told that he gave them that land on Portland Island, I keep looking but I can't find any documentation on that. So, like I hesitate to say but that was one of the stories my uncle Paul told me, but I keep looking for that documentation. But regardless, they did end up living in Portland Island for a good long time. At that time, of course, it was just this little rock just outside Fulford harbour with trees on it. They wanted people to go in and be pioneers, clear the lands, farm it, make something of it, so my great grandfather did that with Palau, they planted orchards, they farmed it, they had gardens, all of their excesses, it was to keep them living themselves, but all the excess went to market, for sale. Maybe they rowed over to Sydney or to Cowichan Bay. Well, Naukana seemed to be fascinated with cherry trees. I guess. Well, I know they don't grow in Hawaii. But it must have been made with his favorite fruit. I don't know. But it's just he, wherever he went, he planted cherry trees. There was a cherry tree up until not too long ago right down, just a short distance from where we live, it's right by Nora Kraik's place, that he planted. But she took it down a few years ago. No?

Audience member
(Audience member disagrees, unintelligible)

Cathy Roland 18:20
Yeah, that's what I thought. I knew disappeared but I didn't know like what had happened. Oh, yes, I remember that very well. The San Juan rose. I am not, not much of a gardener myself. But I know they talk of the San Juan rose all the time. Mom has one, planted one at her house, that he apparently brought with him from San Juan islands. I think they found a very interesting coming here, like we often think of Hawaii as just such a paradise. Who would ever want to leave there? You know, we all flood there when it gets cold here, oh I'm going to the warm climates right. But I think when the winds got here and realize that, look what we can grow here, the soil in Hawaii is that red clay, volcanic soil. You can grow sugarcane in it, and you can grow pineapples in it. And palm trees will come out of it and then you'll have coconut. But other than that, taroe, sweet potatoes, not much for agriculture really there. (unintelligible) vegetables but coming here, like you know you throw a seed in the ground, and it grows. They were probably thinking this is paradise here. So, I wouldn't doubt that they that was a big factor in the Hawaiians staying on this coast. You know, I really can't say for sure that there was a specific reason why they stayed, it's all very speculative, from my point of view. But I think just because of their treatments, they were treated well and fairly, and just the resources here. I think that that played a big part in them staying here. Now, where am I?

Cathy Roland 20:22
The Hawaiians Okay, my heritage is Hawaiian and First Nations. I have no idea if it's Coast Salish, Sechelt, Cowichan. We never knew William Naukana's wife. We didn't know her name. All we know is that she was a native woman from the coast here.

Cathy Roland 20:53
A lot of the Hudson's Bay employees married into the native communities. For one the land just wasn't settled here. There wasn't a lot of settlements until, in the 1800s, they were here really early in the century. So, they married into the native community. The Scottish did, the British, the Hawaiians. And they found it, it was very important to have that tie to the native community. Because they are the indigenous people, they know the land. They were very, very helpful. The relations with the native people was, was very, very good. And the Hawaiians got along famously with them, a lot of parallels between the two cultures. The Hawaiians had their statues, they build statues of their humans and their gods, the natives had totem poles. They drummed; the drum was the heartbeat. And that was a similarity that they shared. Singing, dancing, they sang and danced for a purpose, it wasn't just a jig or a wheel. It was usually telling stories; it was telling history. It's a verbal history, it's not written in so many ways. That's why I got a lot of this information from my uncle. Because he told me, you have to listen to this, someone has to remember this. I'm thinking Well, why don't you write it down? No, you don't do that, you pass it on. And so, I have written down a lot of it now because I don't want to get too mixed up because it's very easy to start going the wrong direction. When it's not a written history, you can very easily start going off on the wrong direction and making things up. Talking stories as the Hawaiians called it. We're prone to stress the truth a little, you know, maybe colour it up a little bit just to make it interesting. But that's, that's very much the Hawaiian way. The Hawaiian people, they loved the Hawaiian people when they brought them here to work, they thought they were very happy, joyous people, they were loyal. They were hard working. Hudson's Bay Company really valued them here and so they continued to bring them until if they were still working here on the coast, they would still be bringing them here. I don't know when the Hudson's Bay Company Well, well it was about 1870 when they really sort of got out of the for trading, they really started to diverse and then that's when things started happening. The Hudson's Bay Company like we know today, the department store, they got so spread out.

Cathy Roland 24:09
By then it was, the area was starting to be settled. And a lot of the Hawaiians had put in so much time. So many terms of the Hudson's Bay Company. They were offered land in return for their return trip home, if you wanted to clear this land and work it, it's yours. So, a lot of them took that up. By the early 1900s now, that's when Queen Liliuokalani was deposed by the Americans and they did take over, and really quite at that time. So, a lot of them really didn't want to back then and there was another huge influx of Hawaiians at that time to the coast and that was directly because of the jailing of that queen and losing the monarchy. The Nahu family was, stands out in my mind, they came to Burrard Inlet in Vancouver. They ran, they were longshoremen over there, huge family. I remember the name, I don't, I never met them myself. I think my brother, John, and my dad spoke of the Nahu. But that was in the early 1900s. So, the Hawaiians have on this coast a long, long time. And they were very, very instrumental in setting of the coast. They sort of faded away into the native communities.

Cathy Roland 25:45
There are a lot of Hawaiian people of Hawaiian (unintelligible) that are living on reserves around BC and on the coast that, they don't denounce their Hawaiian heritage, but they certainly don't recognize it. It's almost well, today, in a lot of ways, if you are not, it may jeopardize your status as a First Nations person, if you have too much Hawaiian or too, you need to be a certain percentage native. So, a lot of Hawaiians people that are living on reserves today don't recognize Hawaiian status at all. They're there, you've been there for a long, long time.

Audience member
Can you tell us a bit about how your family re-established its connection to Hawaii and your own experience with that?

Cathy Roland 26:37
Mary Cook was a reporter for the Honolulu Star Advertiser. And she came up to Vancouver and Victoria, reporting on a dance group, a Hawaiian dance group. I believe it was a high school group. And they saved up their money to come over here and dance and sing for the people in Canada. Simple. She came along to report on that story. And I believe it was Pat Crofton, who was sort of assigned to them to make sure that they could get to ferries on time and get to their hotels, he was sort of their guy. Now they were coming from Vancouver, across to Victoria to do the performance there. He just pointed out to them that over there is Salt Spring Island. There's a bunch of Hawaiians living over there. And Mary Cook, reporter that she was, so she cornered him. He told her the story as best he knew. She came across the following day she did her report in Victoria with the children. The next day, she gets on the ferry comes across to Fulford harbour.

Cathy Roland 27:20
She goes up to this little store, Patterson's. Oh, my name is Mary Cook. And I'm from the Honolulu star advertiser. And I was told that there's a colony of Hawaiians.

Cathy Roland 28:26
W.T Patterson, said oh they're like down Isabella Point. So, all of a sudden, we became a colony. But she did she did, they gave them directions to our house, she came down and knocked on the door. And she saw that dad's face, uncle Paul's face, and she said, you will look more Hawaiian than the Hawaiian folks that are living there today. So, she's, that's exactly how the connection began. Back to Hawaii up until then, we knew we were Hawaiian descended, we knew William Naukana and his daughter, my grandmother, were of Hawaiian descent, but we didn't go looking for any family there just seems so far away. But she came and did an interview with them and took the story back to Hawaii. And ran it in the newspaper and it generated so much interest. They have a legend down there of a God called Bono. And he was going to come from the north back to the Hawaiian Islands and reunite the people, just a legend. But now they're thinking, well, here's this guy from the north, been, been lost for so many years. Well, they, they considered us lost, we didn't know we were lost until they came here and told us we were lost.

Cathy Roland 29:54
But so, there was, that sort of figured into her story, it was just a interest thing, but the Honolulu advertiser, picked up the story and said, we're going to bring these people home. So, they sponsored the trip back to Hawaii. For my uncle Paul and his sister Sophie Tahouney went, and my brother John, my oldest brother, John, John went, Uncle Paul was wheelchair bound. He wasn't too happy with anybody else pushing him around. He wanted his people pushing him around. He trusted them. And to get on the plane, he has a go up on forklift and loaded him in through the side door. The three of them went down in I believe 1970. And it was the first-time uncle Paul had ever been back and there was 350 people with the last name of Naukana at the airport, they had to cordon off one whole section of the airport to contain them. Every one of them had a flower like, and everyone had to go on. That is is the way it was. Every, every flower went on, so they were piled up. I have a picture of Uncle Paul just peeking out like this is just this mountain. And once they got too high, they would pull off the whole lot, put them down. Every single one went on, it had to be. They were treated royally down there, put up at the (unintelligible) hotel. So, they, they stayed for a couple of weeks. Down there, they went to some of the other islands in search of the Naukanas and finally narrowed it down to at least the one family on Oahu that we still stay in contact with today, Mary and Nathan and (unintelligible). With their history and ours and piecing it together, we found them. And I think we're related to a lot more from down there. But again, it's very difficult because a lot of the history is not written down. And records kept here are really not too, not too good for us. A lot of times you'll look, and you'll see that it was a native girl, Kanaka boy.

Cathy Roland 32:39
So, there's no names So it's very difficult to piece together the exact history. But same, same down there. But getting back to Hawaii was just a wonderful trip for my uncle Paul. I'm glad he got to do the trip before he passed. Mom and Dad and I went down two years later. Paul had already done the footwork. So, we already had the families that have lined up. But it's interesting to hear them speak and hear the words coming out of their mouths that we grew up with. And they're Hawaiian words. We didn't know. We just thought everybody knew those words. You know, like pua'a is pig. And so, if you had been beans, pork and beans, that was the pua'a, then like I just always thought I thought that's what it was. But now no, no that was a Hawaiian word. We had the name for dog all wrong. We thought Popoki meant dog, that means cat. Tlio is dog. So, it was interesting to hear the Hawaiians there speaking some of the words that we grew up with from grandma and not realizing that it was, that it was that language we were speaking. Did I answer your question, or did I get off track? I love to ramble you know.

Audience member
What about your singing career there?

Cathy Roland 34:18
I sang in Hawaii, but I didn't see any Hawaiian tunes in Hawaii. I don't know the language. I know it phonetically like I can sing Hawaiian songs by listening to them and just want to be like singing a French song. You don't know the language, you, certainly the words. So, I can sing it that way. But in a way I just sang, just English songs you know, hits of the day. They're big on Over the Rainbow and (unintelligible) and stuff like that. I had sang a lot of that there in Hawaii with, let me see now. Patrick Dixon was the piano player. He lived there, not most of his life, but he was a young teenager till just a few years ago, so he lived there 30 or 40 years. He said he was a white boy from El Paso, Texas, singing Hawaiian songs in a Japanese restaurant. And he was, but he would invite guests like myself, and people from Australia when we came to the islands to visit because we would come like on a regular basis. And then he would always invite us to sing songs either from our countries or just songs that we enjoy. I went down there as a rock or blues singer, and I was thinking I can't be singing that here, they'll throw me out of this place, but he toned me down a bit and found some songs that I can sing. Over the Rainbow was a showstopper. There was never a dry eye in the house. The Kansas people (imitates crying).

Audience member
I wanted to back up and ask, with your great grandfather being Hawaiian and his wife being native, what was their connection locally to either Hawaiians or natives and then how did their children go connect to who they married, how did that happen? Especially from Portland!

Cathy Roland 36:28
Yeah, Portland Island. Well, you see, again, we didn't know his wife at all. Matilda, my grandmother, as we've heard, her mother died soon after she was born. So, she never knew her. And why she never spoke her name to Uncle Paul or any of, like my dad or, I don't know. Grandma, she had a sort of like, you know, we were not raised on reserve, we were raised off the reserve and when you were embraced in the community as part of that community that that was her main focus. We belong to this community. We don't speak Hawaiian. We speak the language; we are this community. And so, she didn't speak her language and why she never spoke of her mother, I don't know. She was just too young. Yeah, she just didn't, didn't know here. Naukana, he lived on Portland with his with his family, 'till oh, till' they were quite old. They rode across the Beaver Point school and then moved to Fulford harbour where (unintelligible) property still is, early 1900s. But as far as the connection to the native community, there was basically none. To the Hawaiian community, the people from Hawaii that lived here, they were they were always thick as thieves, those folks. They were always having Luaus and parties, they pretty much had to stick within. It wasn't that it was not allowed to marry into the European nation. There weren't a lot of Europeans here in early. And so, like as I mentioned earlier, the Hudson's Bay employees mostly married into the native community because they were here. There were no other people here. And the Hudson's Bay Company encouraged it.

Cathy Roland 38:45
We were raised, like you know it to me, it didn't seem remarkable at all. Because we were raised at Fulford harbour. And they're like, if you didn't consider ourselves native or Hawaiian, we were just part of the community.

Audience member
(unintelligible question)

Cathy Roland 39:08
Yeah, so there wasn't a big native community here on Salt Spring. But there were a few villages Well, I think they. I don't know if they lived here on the island full time. I think the natives came here seasonally to hunt or fish or pick berries. I don't believe it was a big community that lived here full time. But they certainly did come to Salt Spring.

Cathy Roland 39:34
Hawaiians most definitely came to Salt Spring. Most, it seems mostly on the south, south end of Salt Spring. The Lumley place way down the end, Bill Lumley was an Englishman, married to a woman called Old Mawana. She was a Hawaiian (unintelligible). The Mahois were on Russel Island which is just outside the Fulford harbour there. My grandfather came to Fulford Harbour. There was quite a few Hawaiian families all clustered in that southern part of Salt Spring island. I think some of them came up farther north, well the Kanaka Road is here by the school. I believe there was a family living there, but for some reason they seemed to stick to the south end of the island. Maybe they were rowing, this is far enough.

Audience member
I wondered if you could tell us something about the lady who lived on Russel Island.

Cathy Roland 40:44
Maria Mahoi. I don't know much about her. I know she's buried in the church at Fulford. I've met someone for kinfolk at the Hawaiian connection. We have a party, almost nearly, for people of Hawaiian descent to gather and trade stories and try and find new connections to their family roots. But Maria Mahoi, I don't know much about her. She married a Douglas did she not mom? Or Fisher? Both, yeah. Fishers and Douglasses.

Audience member
Fishers, and there were some people in North Vancouver. They went from...

Cathy Roland 41:30
Oh, from Russel island? The Bells and the Broadways (?).

Audience member
This is them here.

Cathy Roland 41:37
I know the names; I don't know the people well. Murray Fisher, I remember him.

Audience member
They were at the end of the street there, I had to walk up the hill, it was nighttime, I don't know how I got there.

Cathy Roland 41:51
Mary Janes Fisher, Madam Queen. Everybody had nicknames. Everybody had a nickname. And to this day we give our children and grandchildren nicknames. I don't know if that was a Hawaiian thing or if it was just a family quirk. Because everyone had a nickname. Like Mary Jane Fisher, we called her Madam Queen.

Audience member
What's your mother's nickname?

Cathy Roland 42:14
My mother's nickname? Lo. And it's a very shortened nickname, just from Lauretta. Laura. Lo.

Cathy Roland 42:24
She's a, we didn't hit her too bad. Mine was slob. My father gave me (unintelligible) God rest his soul. Tadpole, they called me tadpole. We have hoss and, and Slon eye over here, there was Runt and Kiwanis and Slugger, Sow, Seals. Oh, everyone. Oh, just lovely, lovely names weren't they.

Unknown
It's a fascinating story isn't it; I could listen all day. There's one connection that Cathy didn't tell you about. And that is, I was her teacher in grade six.

Cathy Roland 43:04
He was telling me, he was younger than I am today, when he taught us grade six.

Unknown
I've changed a bit; she didn't recognize me. But anyway, it's been delightful to have you here, telling us all about your story. And I'm sure that you would like to recognize that by giving Cathy a good hand. I did want to make one mention too of the book that Tom Koppel who sits over there, most of you know Tom, I'm sure. But that's Tom over there, in the green jacket. He's the one who wrote the book called Kanaka. And it's a very good read. If you haven't read it, I could certainly recommend it to you. And if you can just give us a couple of minutes, we'll shove the table back a little bit. And let you get out the goodies because I think the meeting is now adjourned for refreshments, so we'll be with you in a sec. Oh and, books to look at on the table.