This is a note my mom left out for me one day when I stopped by to visit her in Kahala maybe 10 years ago.

The little photo, which is only about an inch high, is of my grandfathter, Duke Yonge. He was born in Lakeport, California, spent several years as a kid in Tombstone, Arizona, where his father ran a pharmacy, came to Hawaii around 1910 and married a Hawaiian woman. At different times, he sold shoes and hoped to open his own shoe store one day, was a collector for Hawaiian Telephone Company (which I think was still known as Mutual Telephone Company at that time), and served as Waipahu station master for OR&L railroad.

According to one of his obituaries, he died at age 72 at 11:40 a.m. on May 28, 1950 at the Oahu Sugar Company hospital in Waipahu.

“Services are to be held under the auspices of Schofield Lodge No. 443 F&AM,” the secret fraternal order of Free and Accepted Masons, more commonly called Freemasons.

I quickly made a digital copy and enlarged it for her. Just click to view a larger version.

At the bottom, a photo of Duke with my grandmother, Heleualani Cathcart Yonge.