Here’s a bit more information on that 1939 luau in honor of the UCLA football team, which was in Honolulu to play the University of Hawaii.

The Wai brothers, Francis and Conkling, were playing for UCLA. My mother and friends had visited the Wai brothers in Los Angeles, and met up with them when they arrived in Honolulu. The photo, below, came from collection.

Their younger brother, Lambert Wai, identified his grandmother, Rosita Lambert, and his uncle, Charles Lambert, in the foreground on the far right.

Lambert Wai added this sad note:

My brother, Francis, had a really nice album and he had some pictures of that luau, along with many pictures of his athletic history. His widow had the album and when she remarried, she moved to Pennsylvania with her new husband. She has passed away and the whereabouts of that album is a mystery. I am really disturbed about that as the album brings back many, many memories and really has no meaning to anyone outside of our family.

Kalai Strode identified his father, Woody Strode, a member of the UCLA team and, later, one of the first black players to be signed by NFL following WWII, beginning integration of the league (Strode is marked by the arrow). By one published account, Strode was dropped by the Los Angeles Rams after a year because they objected to his “mixed” marriage to a Hawaiian woman.

Strode filed for divorce in 1955, although other information suggests it was not pursued. This point has to be checked.

Kalai Strode wrote:

Yes, my father is under the arrow. He would’ve been 97 years old this July 25th. He passed away on New Year’s Eve 1994.

The nexus of relationships are amazing. As you may know, the film director John Ford, was a friend of Kim Wai, the father of the Wai brothers. The story goes (as told to me by Lambert Wai) that Kim Wai was doing a pau hana outside of the Royal Hawaiian hotel, drinking with his friends when John Ford walked by dressed in his blue blazer, and seemed lonely. Kim Wai invited him to drink with the boys, and so everyday John Ford would meet up with Kim Wai and the boys and drink. That led to a friendship, so when the Wai boys went to UCLA, John Ford became their foster parent and looked after them.

Years later my father, Woody, became an actor and worked with John Ford on “Sergeant Rutledge.” John Ford knew all of my mother’s relatives because his children, Pat and Barbara Ford, went to Punahou. It was John Ford who introduced the Western movie to my father, and they became good friends. My father and John Ford’s sister were the only people in the room when John Ford passed away.

According to the caption, the photo was taken at the Bray’s. A search turned up a few photos of the Bray family, well-known entertainers in the 1930s and 1940s.