I think these three photos all date from the same extended trip to the Big Island in 1956. I scanned these from two contact sheets made of the 35mm negatives found in a manila envelope marked “1956”, but I’m not certain they all were together originally. The scans from the tiny prints aren’t the best quality, but actually turned out surprisingly good.

In the top photo, I’m posing with my mother up at the volcano, up close and personal with Halemaumau.

The photo in the middle was taken during a day-long charter fishing trip off the Kona coast. You can see that I apparently wasn’t much into fishing, and I don’t recall anything about fish being caught (although one other photo in the series shows a few small fish being displayed).

And I think the bottom photo was taken at the vacation house we stayed in for a week or so in Kona. The house was made available by May (Bradley) Cook, who had been a close friend of my mother’s at Kamehameha School for Girls when they were boarding students there around 1930. May had married Thomas “Lofty” Cook, who was on the county Board of Supervisors at this time, and a few years later served a term as chairman, the equivalent of mayor.

As a vacation house, this was a great spot. I remember watching the mongooses play around the garbage pile in the yard, and being amazed at the night blooming plants on the rock wall that surrounded the house. Across the street was a small beach where we would swim, often joined by turtles. At that time, Kona was a pretty lazy, laid back place to vacation.

Click on any of the photos to see a larger version.