[Encore: First posted September 28, 2008]

What was it like getting off a ship in Honolulu for the first time back in 1939?

In a word: “Swell.”

At least that’s what my father wrote to a woman back home in Long Beach, California, just about a month after he stepped off the boat to start a new job in the islands.

He arrived with a new Dodge, he wrote, “with two (surf)boards on the top of it, a trunk hanging out the back end and with the sunburn I aquired on the trip.”

The letter is an interesting peek into the past.

It wasn’t among my dad’s accumulated papers. It was discovered by a friend who is now living in the Seattle area. She sent it as a Christmas gift several years ago after finding it among boxes of letters and postcards in a Seattle collectibles show. She had no idea the writer was my father, but just thought I would enjoy seeing something written about Hawaii by another “Lind”.

You can imagine how surprised I was to unfold the pages and start reading. It’s a very small world, indeed!

I was able to track Marjory Beck, who married a James Marsh in Long Beach. She died in Auburn, Washington, in December 1991.

Letter from John Montgomery Lind dated June 6, 1939, describing his first weeks in Hawaii. Lind arrived from California on May 1, 1939 to work in the Honolulu office of Dohrmann Hotel Supply Co.

[Click here to see the original handwritten letter]

June 6, 1939
Honolulu, T.H.

Dear Marjory,

To say I was surprised to receive your very kind letter sailing day is putting it mildly. Its a funny thing, with all the letters, etc. received about that time yours was outstanding. It seems good to have the feeling that, one, Marjory Beck remembered me at the departing date, especially after not having seen or spoken to you after so long a period.

My job in Honolulu is much to my liking. I am the only white person in the employ in our branch out here. Mr. Wong, a Chinese, is managing the store. He is about sixty years of age now and the secret of this move is that if I fill the bill and if I like the country I will automatically work in. So as it is I’m just and still a flunky although I’m enjoying the association with the orientals. In our branch here there are two chinese men, two hawaiian men, one japanese man also a chinese girl and a japanese girl. All are very fine people and speak english except when among their own kind.

The island is swell, not what the magazines make it but there is something about it that gets one. It is warm night and day, not too warm but very comfortable. The business condition is very good here, not too much competition and people do not argue about prices but if a price is quoted it is taken and liked. (this is true in the majority of cases but the percentage of chiselers is low.) There are many fine people here. I have made some fine acquaintances already, am a member of the Jr. Chamber of Commerce, Surfing club and am very much at home in my new abode.

The tropical foliage all over the island is beautiful. The coconut trees, banana trees and all the tropical fruits and flowers add much to the color of the place. I was amused to see so many beautiful flowers worked in the hawaiian lei. A very popular lei is one of gardenias. One may purchase as many as they might care to at two for twenty-five cents (a lei will have about thirty gardenias in it.) Orchids are also popular.

Surfing is swell. I brought two boards over with me along with a few trunks, a new dodge and all. People apparently thought I was an old timer when the boat docked because here was my car with two boards on the top of it, a trunk hanging out the back end and with the sunburn I aquired on the trip. I was taken for an old timer a couple of times.

The boat trip was fun. The firm sent me first class all the way and it was mighty interesting. I say all the way because for 90 days before I sailed I had been in San Francisco at their expense.

In other words I like the company and hope I will be able to do the job they expect of me here.

I will enjoy hearing from you again, Marjory, at your convenience.

Sincerely,
John Lind –