This oral history interview is a project of the Historical Committee of the Outrigger Canoe Club. The legal right to this material remain with the Outrigger Canoe Club. Anyone wishing to reproduce it or quote at length from it should contact the Historical Committee of the Outrigger Canoe Club. The reader should be aware that an oral history document portrays information as recalled by the interviewee. Because of the spontaneous nature of this kind of document, it may contain statements and impressions that are not factual.
An Interview by Vera Forbes
April 19, 1979
VF: Thursday, April 19, 1979, at 3:00 p.m. at her Kalakaua Avenue apartment. A dual interview for the Oral History Committee of the Outrigger Canoe Club, Honolulu, Vera Forbes (VF) interviewing Mrs. Lillie Mackenzie (LBM) and Mrs. Ruth Scudder Gillmar (RSG). May we first just have a brief biographical outline from each of you, bringing us up to the time when you became involved with the Club. Let’s begin with you, Mrs. Gillmar.
RSG: I was born in Japan, in Agano, up in the mountains, where it snows. My parents were missionaries and we lived there. They had been there for some ten years before I was born and my mother died after I was three months old, so dad thought it might be best to take us back to New England – the three of us – my older sister and brother. So we stopped here on the way, and he was given a job with the Hawaiian Board of Missions. And we grew up here and went to Punahou and had wonderful times, but our greatest days were at the Outrigger.
VF: Uh-huh – thank you!
RSG: Absolutely.
VF: And from you, Lillie Bowmer Mackenzie?
LBM: I was born in Newcastle-on-the-Tyne, in England, and my folks came over to America before my brother and I did, and we left in 1914 – August – at the beginning of World War I and we moved – came – went over to Alameda where we lived for five years. And in 1919 we all came down to Hawaii and my father went to work here. And I joined the Outrigger in 1920 and had a wonderful time ever since.
VF: That’s wonderful, thank you. Well then, if we could begin with some of your early recollections of the days with the Outrigger Canoe Club – we’ll just go right ahead, and either one can start and just go right on with whatever you can remember.
LBM: Well, shall I go ahead then?
VF: Sure, um-hmm –
LBM: I started out first swimming for a race for Liliuokalani School – in February of 1920, and it was during that swimming meet that I met Dad Center and some of the swimmers who were already swimming for the Outrigger. And of course, nothing could do but that I would join the Outrigger after I’d met them all – and in March of that same year I joined the Outrigger Canoe Club and started getting training under Dad Center. And that first race – why – two other friends of mine, Dot Waters and Christy Smoot, who also joined the Club – we all tried out in Princess Kaiulani’s small swimming pool in Ainahau, to see who would represent Liliuokalani School. (Chuckle)
VF: Ch – what fun!
LBM: And then we decided how many laps we would swim and I uh – was the fastest one, so I represented the school. Didn’t know how to make a start or anything. I had to learn all that under Dad. But Duke Kahanamoku’s younger sister was in that race also – Kapiolani Kahanamoku – and I came second in that race.
VF: Oh, very good. Who won the race, do you remember?
LBM: Kapiolani.
VF: Kapiolani won!
LBM: Uh-hmm.
RSG: I don’t remember that pool at all. Where was it?
LBM: Princess Kapiola – Princess Kaiulani – in back of the big house that was there – that burned down in 1921 – her home, you know – the big red home –
RSG: Yes.
LBM: In Waikiki there. And the little pool was in the back and they had it filled with water. We used to go there and swim every once in a while.
VF: How great.
LBM: It was lots of fun – ‘cause we lived right there on Kuhio Avenue – and then of course, the swimming meet was held down at the YMCA. You remember the old swimming pool –
RSG: Oh, I do, yes.
LBM: The swimming –
RSG: I remember.
LBM: Yes, that’s where they held all the indoor races.
RSG: I remember with great chagrin that swimming pool.
LBM: Oh?
VF: Why is that? Why with chagrin?
RSG: I was supposed to make a world’s record or something – and the newspapers had it all over – that I was going to make a world’s record. Well, I was coming down with typhoid fever.
VF: Oh, my heavens!
RSG: I didn’t know what was wrong with me but something definitely was – and they put me in and said “Go ahead, swim, you’ll be all right.” I went this way (gesture) all over the pool! I ran into everybody.
LBM: Oh dear!
RSG: Oh, I came out so ashamed – “Dad, you’ll just never forgive me.” And he said “I don’t know what’s wrong with you – but” he said “I’ll forgive you – get in there and get dressed.” The next day I was in the hospital.
VF: Oh, my!
RSG: I stayed for three months.
VF: Oh, my goodness!
LBM: Oh my!
RSG: And I got the typhoid fever – from this – you know where. This little place here (looking at a picture in Dad Center’s album).
VF: What little place was that?
LBM: Oh, the lagoon. Next to the old Outrigger there was an old lagoon that drained – there was a drainage ditch came down and had this big lagoon. It was always full of flotsam and jetsam and junk.
RSG: It came from the ponds in back there. They had rice paddies.
VF: From Waikiki? Drainage?
LBM: Yes, there were rice paddies in the back and – yes rice paddies and of course it drained – I guess it was from Palolo, Palolo Stream, and it drained down, underneath Kalakaua – and of course into this lagoon.
VF: Oh, my.
LBM: And of course – during the – when the kids – the boys were all young, the older ones used to offer them “double-deckers” – that’s two scoops of ice-cream with chocolate sauce, from Sasaki’s little commissary – if they would race ‘cross the dirty old lagoon.
VF: Oh, Horrors!
RSG: I think that’s what I did. I remember that ice cream.
LBM: And they used to give – when you all got a new suit – then the others would give you a “Punahou swing” into the lagoon that – oh, it was dirty –
RSG: This is it (shows a picture in Dad Center’s book). It was full of all sorts of stuff. This is a picture of it – and the Moana’s over here and the Outrigger there.
LBM: The Outrigger was on the other side – it was right between the Outrigger and the Moana.
VF: Ruth, you have absolute proof that it was dangerous!
RSG: So that was about the end of my swimming, really. I was only in for a couple of years.
LBM: Right, well you were in – in – what was it?
RSG: Before 1919. See, before you came here even.
LBM: By 1919 I was here, but I wasn’t swimming though until ’20 – But ’23, I thought you were – yes, you were in, in ’23 –because down at the docks – meets we were swimming – because I remember you hadn’t been well then, and you were in this race with me, and I remember when it was over, I swam over to see if you were all right.
RSG: Pull me out – keep me from drowning (chuckle) –
LBM: ‘Cause I was worried about our new – that’s when Sonny Ruttmann –
RSG: Oh, yes –
LBM: Leaned down and picked me up – and when I saw who picked me up I went –a-a-ah!
RSG: You’d of let me drown! (Laughter)
VF: You forgot all about her! Do you remember what that race was?
LBM: It was a 100-yard race.
VF: Did the Outrigger have responsibility for it – was it a town –?
LBM: Oh, no – it was an AAU Meet – and there were different clubs entered – Hui Makani and Outrigger – and were there any other clubs in that?
RSG: Hui Nalu?
LBM: Hui Nalu? Were they in that? Yes, they were a men’s club.
VF: I see.
LBM: Down at the Moana – they had a club down there – and then they always had various other races – but they were three-night meets that they held down there at the docks – Pier 5.
VF: Pier 5?
LBM: They would have them Thursday, Friday and Saturday rights.
VF: Were these men as well as women?
LBM: Oh yes, yes – and they had a service men’s race, too. I remember they used to have to – swim 50 yards in a full pack and a hat – campaign hat and everything, too.
VF: Heavens!
LBM: One man almost drowned! But the Outrigger, of course, always had men and boys, as well as girls, too, racing. And they had diving – platforms, 10 foot, then tower-diving – they built the tower for that, too.
VF: And this was also at Pier 5?
LBM: At Pier 5, yes, that was the only place they could have a long stretch, because the only other one, as I said before, was the one at the YMCA, downtown; that was only a 20-yard pool.
RSG: They had a barge at the end, didn’t they?
LBM: Both ends: two coal barges, that were measured 100 yards apart; starting platforms built on each – along each side, you know, so that they could go like this (demonstrates starting position) and then they built the tower, built the three-foot board and the ten-foot board. Diving boards.
RSG: Remember our bathing suits? What a thrill to get those silk suits!
VF: Oh, could you describe the bathing suits for us?
RSG: Well – not the ones we were supposed to wear. But we got silk suits to race in – the Outrigger emblem here (points).
LBM: And no skirts!
VF: Oh – which was very daring!
RSG: And short!
LBM: And short, too.
RSG: And the women of the Outrigger just thought it was horrible – oh, they thought it was horrible.
LBM: And they made them put skirts on them! Yeah – and I can remember when I – it was while I went away to the Coast, that was in ’21 – and I came back in 1922 and my bathing suit had a skirt on it – and I was a little late, so Dad said “Get in there quick; change; you’re in the next race”. And I went in to change, and I pulled it on quickly, and of course the jersey – they were fine silk jersey – but they hadn’t – didn’t have elastic stitches in those days like they do now, you know, the stretch – and all went click, click, click and all was hanging in loops! (Laughter)
VF: Oh, with nine scallops!
RSG: Here they are, see (looking at album pictures).
VF: That’s very racy!
RSG: Oh, this picture hangs in the Outrigger.
LBM: Yes, this is Phena (Josephine) Hopkins, and Ruth Scudder and –
RSG: And Gerd Hiorth and Bea Dowsett.
LBM: Oh, Bea Dowsett, yes, also –
VF: So they were all racing – at that time, too.
LBM: That was before – before I joined.
VF: That’s you then (looking at pictures).
RSG: Yes, this was in 1919, they were all a few – three years older – and this freckle-face is me.
VF: Uh-huh, well those were very interesting tank – were they called tank suits at the time?
LBM: No, we just called them racing suits.
RSG: Racing suits.
VF: What color were they?
LBM: Navy blue – with the Outrigger emblem on them – the winged “O”.
VF: With the white and the red – yes, the winged “O” –
RSG: Dad took the four of us up to Hilo when Frances Cowles came through.
LBM: Oh.
RSG: Do you know Frances Cowles?
VF: What was the –?
LBM: Oh, yes, I remember hearing the name, yes.
RSG: And –
LBM: She was a – from the coast.
RSG: I happened to beat her in the back stroke. She made a great mistake – she must have had a broken ankle or something –
LBM: Oh no, you were just good!
RSG: And so – um – so that was how I got going with these girls.
VF: Now, you had mentioned before that you were the baby of this group. Would you describe something about that?
RSG: About them! Oh, they were beautiful – about 17 – 18 year olds I guess – weren’t they – and I was 14 – and I was just in their hair, you know. They wanted to get rid of me all the time. (Laughter)
VF: But you were a good, fast swimmer, so they –
RSG: Well – it helped, I guess – we did win.
VF: What was the race on in Hilo? Do you remember?
RSG: This was a rel – a relay. It was for these visiting people, I think – swimmers.
LBM: Swimmers from the coast?
RSG: Yeah. Frances – Kanau?
LBM: Cowles sounds familiar (jumbled)
VF: Frances – what was the – Cowle?
LBM: Cowles – C-O-W-L-E-S.
VF: Cowles, I see. It was sponsoring this – race?
RSG: I think Norman Ross, and some of those divers – what was his name?
LBM: Jack Hiorth?
RSG: No. from the mainland.
LBM: Oh!
RSG: We know so well – you liked him – very much –
LBM: O-o-hh. (Laughter)
RSG: Can’t you remember? Who you liked?
LBM: He was – from the mainland –
RSG: “Stubby” Kruger (Harold Kruger).
LBM: Stubby Kruger. Oh – yes, yes. I thought he lived here – thought Stubby lived here.
RSG: Well, I don’t know.
VF: Now were there – these people were racing also? Or divers?
RSG: He was a diver. There was a regular meet – of the various –
VF: A meet for the diving? And Dad Center took you over – he was training you gals?
RSG: Oh yes – we had a wonderful trip home (edit note: including a stop a Maui) – we went up Haleakala, spent the night on the top.
LBM: Oh, yes.
RSG: Swam in Puunene –
LBM: Was that in ’21?
RSG: I believe it was – I think it was 1919.
LBM: Oh, because I know that all the whole group went up again in ’21 when I was away and I – here I was away on a nice trip with my mother – up to the coast and going all around up there and down –
RSG: No – that was later, than – ‘cause I don’t think I knew you then.
LBM: And – ’21 – 1921 –
RSG: Well, so this was ’19.
LBM: Aah – yes. Did they hold ¬–? I didn’t go – and I was just sick because I missed the trip up to Maui – but they went up there to swim and then went up to Haleakala after –
VF: Do you remember whether the Outrigger won? Any of the boys or girls won some of these meets?
RSG: I think we did – I mean we were supposed to be the best. Really the best – the Outrigger! They were just starting out in these islands. I think when we had Dad to train us –
VF: Tell us something about the training. How and where you trained?
RSG: Oh, you do that Lillie, ‘cause you came along longer than I did.
LBM: We trained every Friday night, up at Punahou. Punahou gave Dad the privilege of using the pool, which at that time was a very small pool, before they had the big one built, and we used to go up there and – Dad would line us all up and have exercises first, then dry-land swimming – you bend over, and just use your arms – ; and then you took groups and you had to go so many laps of kicking, so many laps just arms – so many laps crawl – and so many laps backstroke if you were doing backstroke, and the same for breaststroke. And Dad was really a wonderful person. Now we were – the gals that were swimming then were about in their teens – early teens – and he used to designate a certain place in Waikiki for the Waikiki group to meet. Maybe at the Outrigger – maybe at the Seaside Hotel – wherever he could drive in and pick us all up – in his old Stutz, wasn’t it?
RSG: Yes.
LBM: And he would take us up training, and he would take everyone of us to our homes after –
VF: That’s marvelous!
RSG: And what’s more, he gave us all those ice-creams!
LBM: Oh yes! (Jumbled) (Laughter)
RSG: Tell them about that time that you didn’t get it!
LBM: Yes! We would be training down at the pool – down at the YWCA, and we were all piled into his car, and he drove down – When we stopped on Beretania Street – there was Rawley’s Drive-In – down near Alakea Street – and we stopped in there, and Dad drove in – and we were all saying “Oh, I want a chocolate ice-cream soda,” – another was saying I want something else – I want malted milk” and Dad said “Lillie, get out – and buy – get me a loaf of bread”. (Laughter) So I went in, bought the loaf of bread, came out and off we went home – no sodas, no ice-cream! (laughter) I’ve often laughed about that since. The nerve of us, you know – thinking – Poor Dad, we really thought he was –
RSG: He did that on purpose – he loved to tease!
LBM: Oh, sure! He was quite a tease – and he was a wonderful person.
RSG: If you’d kept quiet I’m sure you probably would have gotten your ice-cream! (Laughter)
LBM: I’m sure we would have. But really – he was – he really gave up his every Friday night –
RSG: His whole life – !
LBM: To our training. And sometimes he would take us down to – we’d have to meet Sunday morning down at Ft. DeRussy for diving. down there – for there was no diving board down at the – at Punahou, at that time.
VF: What was at DeRussy? Was this part of the army?
LBM: A fort! Yes, Fort DeRussy, right down here (Wailiki) –
VF: Yes.
LBM: And they had a big area that had been dredged out of the coral, and they had a –
RSG: A high tower.
LBM: A high tower, the 35-foot tower; they had a 10-foot springboard and another high one plus the 3-foot board. And those that practiced diving, we practiced down there.
RSG: I remember you’d go from that big one – and I thought, well, if you could do it, I could. It took me about an hour to get to the edge. (Laughter)
LBM: I didn’t care much for diving – and I never got over my fear.
RSG: Oh, you were such a good diver.
LBM: No, but I didn’t like the ‘one-and-a-halves’ and those sort of things – I just couldn’t do.
VF: Did you compete in diving? At all?
LBM: Oh, yes – yes.
RSG: You were very good at that!
LBM: I was in diving; and 50, 100, 220, 440; backstroke, and diving and relay.
RSG: And you should see her medals! They reach from here to where!
VF: Now, could you tell us about these medals? What particular races that you won? Any records?
LBM: Well – yes, I had the world’s record in the fifty in 1923 – ’22, and I had the world’s record in the 100 yards in ’23, but didn’t last – none of them lasted very long. There was always somebody right behind you!
RSG: But to have had them is something!
LBM: And then in ’28, I broke another record then, too, but that didn’t hold very long either. But – ‘course the times then were so slow compared to what they make now! My goodness.
VF: Really!
RSG: Oh yes, oh my!
LBM: I made 1:03.3 in the 100 meters in 1923, where – no, 100 yards – where now, why if you can’t make it in way under a minute, you’re out, you know, nowadays.
RSG: Have Squeaky and Helen (to LBM) told you about their swimming on the Big Island? (Note: Marischen Wehselau Jackson and Helen Moses Cassidy who are living in Kamuela.)
LBM: No, had they started to race? (Overlapped)
RSG: They started last week, and she said “We needed you and Lillie.”
LBM: Oh!
RSG: I don’t know whether that meant they lost or – (Laughter)
LBM: They like to have had a relay.
RSG: I guess so.
LBM: I remember over at Pohai Nani they started in relay – had a relay race over there. Helen phoned down – Squeaky and Helen phoned down and said “We’ve got to get going and start a – get a relay race going and challenge them!” (Laughter) But then in 1922 – Punahou built their Elizabeth Waterhouse Memorial Pool, and that was opened up I guess at the end of ’21 – I think the latter part of ’21 – because I got back in February of ’22 and it was all ready –
VF: All finished –?
LBM: Had been opened – um-hm.
VF: So then you started training there?
LBM: Started training in the pool – Of course, that had a regulation diving tower and diving platforms and everything. I don’t know whether they were three-meters then or still three-feet. I think – I think they were still going by feet. Of course, the pool was 25 yards long, and that was quite an improvement over the 20, because for a 50 yard race you could go just twice – whereas at the other pool, at the YMCA, you had to go twice and then 10 (yards) more.
VF: I’d like to just ask how you went about joining (the OCC) and possibly if you could tell us how old you were and if you were in school at the time. Maybe you could tell us first, Ruth?
RSG: I don’t remember how old I was, I know I was a brat – but I used to go with the family and we’d have a light meal down there under the trees – and we could cook a little in the kitchen. And we just grew up there – it was a sort of second home! In summers we lived there – absolutely – from dawn to dusk – we were out surfing, or swimming, or getting in someone’s hair. ‘Specially the ladies!
LBM: Why sure!
VF: How about you Lillie, do you recall?
LBM: Well, I was 13 when I joined, and it was, as I said, before earlier in the tape, that it was after I had – swam for Liliuokalani School – and I joined. My folks evidently must have paid for my – naturally paid for my – whatever the admission was – I mean that dues – which I think, if I remember rightly were only twelve dollars a year. And, of course, then I spent all my summers and every afternoon after school at the Outrigger and from then on – and it was a lot of fun because they had a hau terrace with wooden tables and chairs – they had a kitchen which had a lot of gas plates in it where you could warm up whatever you wanted.
VF: You could go in yourself – and use the kitchen?
LBM: Oh yes – yes – the children were allowed to use it and we had two Japanese men there that took care of the place. One was Sasaki whom we all loved dearly. And he had charge of the little commissary. They carried ice-cream, and canned beans, canned spaghetti, tea and those sort of things that people could buy and use there. And they could just warm up suppers and things and eat their lunch or dinner. And I’m afraid we gave them an awful bad time! We used to swipe Sasaki’s hot water when we’d come in freezing from surfing. And sometimes try to snitch a little bit of his chocolate sauce that he was cooking. And we’d turn full glasses of water upside down – I don’t remember how we did it – on the tables – and then Mori would have to take them off.
VF: They’d be sitting there – with water inside?
RSG: The boys would always say “I’ll bet you can’t do it” you know, and we’d say “Oh, we can”.
LBM: And then Mori would come to clear off the tables, and then water would go everywhere. Oh, it was a lot of fun! And another thing we used to have down at the Club which I thought was really great – they had a punching bag – and we all learned to punch the punching bag.
VF: Oh, really? The girls were allowed –?
LBM: Oh yes, we learned to punch – ‘specially coming in after swimming, or surfing, we’d be really cold and you’d go and punch that bag for a little while – it certainly warmed you up! But the Club, at that time, when I first joined – they had a separate women’s dressing room, off to the side, and then a small volleyball court next to that for the youngsters. It was a smaller one.
VF: ‘Specially for the younger kids?
LBM: A smaller court. And then, of course – then they had the hau terrace and the commissary and then the men’s volleyball court. Well, of course, the women could use it, too, when they weren’t weren’t using it. And then, out on the beach was this great, big open building – looked like a dance floor, with a roof – but all open – and underneath – it was built up high – underneath they kept all the canoes. There were two parts to that. Then, of course, later on, they took one part of it and moved it back, and put dressing rooms underneath for the women’s dressing rooms.
VF: I’m curious to know how – you mentioned before that you surfed and you also paddled, I believe – didn’t you say?
LBM: Paddled, yes in the early 30’s.
VF: Could you tell us – talk about, maybe, the paddling and the surfing? You know, I understand the surfboards were so heavy in those days – and I don’t know how you ladies managed that!
RSG: They were – and the men were not anxious to carry them for us!
VF: Why don’t you tell us about that?
LBM: Well, they showed us – we learned how to pick them up on your shoulders and there’s a – just a knack – a way of picking them up. And you could just – once you knew how – you balanced them really, on your arm and on your shoulder.
RSG: Except when it came out water-logged, on, then it was heavy – we were tired.
LBM: Of course they were all redwood then, and heavy, and I had – my board was a little smaller ‘cause I had gotten mine from my brother, and he had graduated to a bigger one, and I got his smaller one. And we used to take canoes out then, too, when we were youngsters – two or three gals and I – we’d take a small canoe. We’d paddle a way outside and go swimming without our suits.
VF: Oh, what fun!
LBM: Then come paddling in again – there wasn’t anybody around in those days.
RSG: Oh, the boys would go around on the roof with their –
LBM: Oh, they always said that when we went out . . . you know, just a bunch of girls – when there were just a few girls – when we’d come back in they’d say, “Oh, we had our binoculars out – you know we were watching you from the roof!” (Laughter)
RSG: It was gorgeous swimming out there – oh, beautiful.
VF: Very clear?
RSG: Yes Indeed.
VF: Did you do any training with the canoeing?
LBM: Not then. Not then. That was just for fun when we were young – when we were youngsters. We just went out – just paddled, just for fun. Just learned to steer by watching the fellows and I never got to –took it out onto a wave though – I didn’t have the nerve for that when I was that young.
RSG: You were the only one that could steer, weren’t you?
LBM: Yeah.
VF: Really – how did you learn to steer?
LBM: Just watching – when I was out paddling – I just learned to steer.
RSG: It’s a real art, too.
VF: Yes, it really is.
LBM: It was in 1930 that I started canoe paddling and you were in that race over in Hilo.
RSG: (Laughter) Oh, gosh!
VF: What was that race?
RSG: Mariechen will tell that one, I won’t.
VF: Yes, she probably will.
LBM: Well, that was the start of the girls’ paddling in races. That was the start. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t over in Hilo at that time, for that trip. But Dad again – Dad gave us the coaching. And we’d go down to – up the Ala Moana. They had dredged a channel there, you know – that channel was dredged there across from the Ala Moana. And we paddled down there, or the fellows would paddle down and we’d meet down there and we’d practice there or wherever we were going to have a race. Sometimes in the harbor – sometimes there and then sometimes just off shore. We’d just go out practicing, like they do now.
RSG: You were always steersman, weren’t you?
LBM: Yes.
RSG: (Unclear) You were always number one.
VF: Were there – were your canoes just all girls or did you ever have mixed boy-girl –?
RSG: Oh, no – all girls.
VF: All girls.
LBM: Yes. We never had a man to steer for us at all ‘cause I always did the steering and that was what kind of shocked me at first when I came back here and saw them practicing – and for a long time they had fellows do the steering in a race.
VF: Yes, doing the steering?
LBM: Yes, and I thought – oh, my goodness, why haven’t they trained these girls to steer?
VF: Right.
LBM: But they do now. I have noticed that last few years the girls have been doing their own steering, which I think is good. It should be that way.
RSG: The girls are doing very well.
VF: Very well.
RSG: I didn’t realize how well.
LBM: Yes, I should say.
VF: Very strong. The Olympics, now – were either of you involved in the Olympics at all in any way?
LBM: Not until 1928, because I had my daughter in 1924 (Laughter) and Squeaky went, of course, in ’24 and Helen went in 1920 – then Squeaky and I – Mariechen Wehselau and I, went in 1928 to the Olympic try-outs in New York.
VF: Would you describe all of that for us please and I’ll –
LBM: Oh, well, we had, of course, a number of swimming meets here first to have elimination races and then we were chosen to represent Hawaii – I guess it would be – not just the Club itself – but represent the Islands. And we had races up in San Francisco first which we went into and then from there – of course, we went by – on the ship I think, it was the Malolo, and then in – then went across continent by train to Far Rockaway in New York.
VF: Oh.
LBM: And swam there and –
VF: And did you go to ______________? (Unclear)
LBM: Not then. I went to Florida in 1927, I think it was, and that was from Santa Monica. I had gone to live there for a couple of years, my husband and I, and I swam then, just for those two years, with the Casa del Mar Club and it was while I was swimming with them that I went back to Florida to the Nationals.
VF: I see.
LBM: And Mariechen went there then, too. She and Mrs. Fullard-Leo who was her chaperone at that time. And in ’28 she didn’t need a chaperone because I now was the chaperone! (Laughter)
VF: You were a great chaperone – (Laughter)
RSG: Oh yes – any day, we’ll take you on, Lillie!
VF: And how did the Outrigger sponsor this? Sponsor you girls in any way?
LBM: No, this was the Islands – and, of course, we were members of the Outrigger, and we swam under their colors, of course, for the Outrigger in the meets here – but when we once want to the Olympic Games it was really representing Hawaii.
VF: I see.
LBM: Not the Olympic Games. I beg your pardon – the Olympic try-outs.
VF: Try-outs, yes.
LBM: And then we represented Hawaii then. And money came from the AAU, I imagine – the Amateur Athletic Union here. I guess people must have sponsored –
RSG: Mrs. Fullard-Leo –
LBM: Yes, she was in on that, too. She was quite – she was very active in sports. She knew all the records and had everything all written out – and she knew exactly who had done what and when. She was a marvelous woman.
RSG: She was.
LBM: And, of course, when you have Mariechen and Helen talk – they both went to the Olympic Games – they will give you the – everything. They had very interesting experiences. But we had a wonderful trip back there in ’28 – Mariechen and I. We both enjoyed it.
RSG: I heard about Chicago. You two in Chicago?
LBM: No, no – you mean New York.
RSG: Oh, was it New York? I thought it was Chicago.
LBM: The champagne – after the chocolate –
VF: Champagne and chocolates?
LBM: O-h-h! (Laughter) You can picture that –
VF: Oh dear, yes indeed.
LBM: That’s when Squeaky – I was singing in the hotel – we were in the room – I was taking a bath or a shower, I forget what they had, and I was singing away and Squeaky said – she said “Oh, Lillie, save your voice, you might need it someday.”
VF: Was there any sort of entertainment planned for the young people –dances – that sort of thing?
RSG: No, we mostly made our own fun in those days. We didn’t need anybody to entertain us. We seemed to be bubbling over with everything, too. And Helen Cassidy – Moses she was then – used to play the piano very, very well and we sort of danced around, I don’t know whether it was with each other or whether the boys joined in too, but we had a marvelous time.
VF: There was a piano? Whereabouts was this piano?
RSG: On the upper level there, of the big open pavilion. I remember mentioning the canoes were underneath and up above was a big area and dance floor.
LBM: A big dance floor –
RSG: Like a big pavilion with a little raised platform where they had the piano.
VF: Uh-huh.
LBM: It is a wonder it ever played because everybody and his uncle played on it and banged on it – “Chop sticks” and “Kitten on the Keys”.
VF: Fantastic!
LBM: But we didn’t have any – they may have held dances there and I am quite sure they did, because I remember hearing about them. But I don’t recall myself ever going to a dance there. May be there was one – but it is so vague, I don’t remember really going to any dances –
RSG: I remember some – but they were very much later when we came back from school.
LBM: And as Ruth said, we really had – we really made our own fun. If we weren’t swimming, we were surfing. And if we weren’t doing that we were down at Ft. DeRussy diving – and always a bit opposite to what Dad wanted us to do.
VF: Oh really!
LBM: It seemed like! If he wanted us to go swimming, we wanted to go down to DeRussy to dive, and, as I said before, we had our own volleyball court and we played there many games – sometimes just two kids or maybe three on a side or more – and –
RSG: The punching bag!
LBM: And once in a while on the punching bag.
VF: Where was the punching bag?
LBM: That was underneath the pavilion –
RSG: The pavilion –
LBM: On the side next to the –
VF: The canoes?
LBM: No, right by the canoes but where the boys played volleyball.
VF: I see.
LBM: Once in a while the men – the older boys – men – the young men, I should say – they would invite us to play volleyball with them.
VF: Invite the girls? How nice!
LBM: We were just youngsters, you know, and we just thought that was wonderful for them to let us play with them.
VF: Can you remember anybody in particular who might have asked you to play?
LBM: Oh, Dad, Dad Center.
RSG: And “Chippie” Chase – “Chippie” Chase – the headmaster up at Punahou.
VF: Oh, really.
LBM: Oh, yes.
RSG: We had to hide from him when we cut school! (Laughter)
LBM: He was always at the beach, all the time.
RSG: He was very good about his exercise.
LBM: His exercise –
VF: When you received your medals or awards did the Outrigger have any sort of –?
RSG: No.
VF: Reward events as they do these days?
RSG: No – no. how did we get them, I forget?
LBM: Why I think they just passed them out. After we had won them they were sent back to the jewelers to be engraved.
RSG: That’s right.
LBM: And then – just later on –
RSG: Very informal –
LBM: Later on they were just given to you when you came down to the Club – by somebody who handed them to you from the office.
VF: No fanfare.
RSG: No – oh, no! We didn’t expect anything.
VF: That’s too bad.
LBM: I didn’t even think about it. We were just delighted to have gotten them – gotten the medals.
RSG: Yes, the most wonderful thing about Dad’s girls – they have been friends forever, haven’t we Lillie?
VF: Isn’t that marvelous!
LBM: Ever since we’ve met we’ve been good friends.
VF: He really instilled this sort of thing – I am sure.
RSG: He did. And honest decent play – and we never cared whether we lost or won, did us?
LBM: Nope!
RSG: Our friend had won – that’s fine.
VF: Isn’t that great!
RSG: It was real sportsmanship!
LBM: We all tried to win, of course – there’s no doubt about that. Dad insisted on it.
RSG: But we weren’t sulking or feeling badly if someone else did.
VF: There was a good team spirit.
LBM: Very, very good. And there were a number – lots of other girls that swam for the Club – too – that I don’t even remember their name now. – I can’t even think what their names were – but they worked just for a little while – and they were gone – some of them were Army.
RSG: There was Dolly Mooney –
LBM: Dolly went away –
RSG: Yes, when she was young.
LBM: Oh, they came and went there for a while –
LBM: Melba –
RSG: Christy Smoot and –
LBM: Christy Smoot and Dot Waters – Christy still lives up in Seattle – and there was Melba – I can’t think of her last name – isn’t that awful – Melba – Melba Duffy – she swam, too.
RSG: I remember her.
LBM: She was – they were even younger than I.
VF: How old were the youngest – swimming – in competition?
LBM: Oh, I guess –they must have been around ten – when I was about thirteen – they must have been about ten, nine or ten years old.
VF: Fantastic!
LBM: Because Dad, the reason Dad got the use of the Punahou pool, too – which showed that he had to really put out, when you think of – what he had to do was that – he had to train whoever, whatever youngster wanted to come and train on that Friday night – and so we sometimes used to help get those youngsters in first – and, you know, show them the arm strokes and everything and we older ones – then we would get rid of them – get finished with them, and then we would have the pool.
VF: So you were sort of helping out with the training, too!
LBM: And that was the – and then we had exercises that we had to do – breathing exercises and swinging our arms and then we’d stand and bend over using the swim stroke – We’d lie on the benches and just work one arm and then the other and Dad would walk down, back and forth, watching us and correcting us – correcting the stroke – and sometimes we’d go ten laps, crawl – ten laps kicking – ten laps arms, just arms – and sometimes – we think that when something went wrong; somewhere – Dad became kind of mad we’d have to do twenty laps.
VF: Oh, my heavens! (Laughter)
RSG: We were afraid to get on his wrong side.
VF: Really?
RSG: We paid for it. We couldn’t get around him like we could Sasaki.
LBM: But he was very patient. I remember when I had to do a back dive from the 10-foot board, I walked out to the end and got in position and I said “Dad, I can’t do it”. He said “Go back and start again.” I went back – I think he did that about three or four times. He had – and I kept saying “I can’t do it”, then the fourth time he said “Well, just get the h___ out of here and don’t come back.” (Laughter) Of course I did – I came back the next time.
VF: Did you do it the next time?
LBM: Oh yes, I did it the next time. (Looking at pictures)
RSG: I think this is Frances Cowles – you know her – and here’s Stubby, and there’s Coach (unclear) before your day –
LBM: Oh yes – I remember Norman Ross and Stubby Kruger – but I don’t remember –
VF: Were they from the coast?
RSG: They were from the mainland. They came down – she’s the one that went to Hilo and I happened to beat –
LMB: Johnny Weismuller came down to swim back in 19–, I thought it was ’21 – but they insisted it was ’22 that he came down. Somehow I had the impression it was ’21 – but Mrs. Fullard-Leo, I called her, and she said “No” it was ’22 when he first came down – when the big pool at Punahou was opened. He swam there.
VF: Oh, really, he swam there – what was the purpose? Was it an exhibition?
LBM: No, no – he came down to race in a swimming meet – a special meet. He was only about sixteen then.
VF: Oh, for heavens’ sake!
LBM: Now he is 74 and he is very ill.
RSG: Yes, I have heard that. Isn’t that too bad.
LBM: And they are going to have to put him into a mental institution.
RSG: Oh, that’s too bad. (Pause)
RSG: Here’s Dolly Mooney.
LBM: Oh, yes.
RSG: And Helen, a very good picture of Helen.
LBM: Are you in this group?
RSG: I don’t think so – there’s the Harriet – something – and Helen and Phena (Josephine Hopkins) –
VF: Did you girls ever find that you received any sort of publicity? For any of your competition –
RSG: (Laughter) I don’t know what you’d call it – publicity or what – But I remember – being a minister’s daughter – someone sent me a picture from New York on the Police Gazette – a big pink thing – and it was quite a paper. And here was I standing on the front page of it with my name and everything else. How it got there, I don’t know. I must have won a race somewhere – and, so the “Champion of Hawaii”, you know – and oh, I never lived it down.
VF: Were you in your racy bathing suit?
RSG: I did keep it for a while and then I lost all my books and papers.
VF: Oh, what a shame!
RSG: And all the clippings it was with that and I lost them all.
LBM: Were you in a racing suit?
RSG: Oh, no!
LBM: Or a regular bathing suit?
VF: With a little skirt?
RSG: I don’t think I was in this sort of thing (pointing at picture).
VF: You mean a regular tank suit – not a racing suit.
LBM: When those racing suits were wet they left nothing to the imagination.
VF: They are going back to that sort of thing, again, now, I think.
LBM: After a race they always had somebody standing at the end of the – on the platform and when we climbed out they had a towel – wrapped you in a towel immediately. We had our regular terry-cloth robes that we always had with us when we went out to a meet.
RSG: Remember the massages that we used to get?
LBM: Oh-h-h, yes!
VF: Tell us about them.
LBM: They were wonderful – Fuji –
RSG: Fuji –
LBM: The Japanese lady that used to come for a week before every meet and give all the swimmers – the girls – massages – “lomi-lomi”. They had a small room with a table and she had this nice rub-down –
VF: At the Club?
LBM: At the Outrigger, yes. It was a small room at the back of the women’s locker rooms – or dressing rooms, and we’d all – every afternoon she’d come down there and she’d massage – give us all a massage.
VF: Fantastic.
LBM: We had more fun because some of us were ticklish, and when she’d start on certain parts of your legs or your back or something – it seemed somebody was always ticklish. But she was a wonderful masseuse!
RSG: Oh, she was such a nice person. And the night before a race, remember the steak dinners?
VF: Steak dinners?
LBM: Oh, yes, a training table!
RSG: I think Dad paid for that – all the time.
LBM: I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.
VF: How – where did you have that?
LBM: At the Club –
RSG: Under the arbor there – under the hau trees.
LBM: That’s why they had to have a hau terrace here. Because we had the old hau terrace there and when – the front – we renovated down there they still had a hau terrace – make sure – they had to have a hau terrace where they could sit with their bathing suits on – and have lunch or drinks or – course they didn’t have drinks in the old clubhouse.
RSG: Oh, no – gracious, nothing like that was served.
LBM: No meals were served. You could just bring – the people could just bring the food – it was a family club and people brought their stew – or whatever they wanted, brought it there and would heat it up. That’s all you could do. You couldn’t do any actual cooking.
VF: How were those steak dinners prepared then? That’s fascinating.
RSG: Sasaki I think did it.
LBM: I don’t know – Sasaki probably prepared them – fried them – you know.
VF: That story about when the men were having a hot game –
LBM: Playing volleyball? The volleyball court was right near the men’s locker rooms, their dressing rooms – and quite often, when they’d be having a really hot game going on, somebody would get a bucket of ice-water, get up on the roof and then throw it down on them.
VF: Oh – what happened then?
LBM: Well, then it would just erupt into a riot – (Laughter) And they all wanted – started chasing the fellow that had thrown the ice-water. (Pause) Another thing they used to do, too – the same idea – sometimes they would be fellows lying down on the beach side – just up near the pavilion and somebody would get up on the pavilion, lean over and pour ice-water down on them, too.
VF: Oh, dear. (Laughter)
LBM: On the people lying down there. So there was always something doing, as I said earlier about this. Having the kids swim in that lagoon – somebody being thrown in with a new suit – a “Punahou swing” – and it was, as I say – we really had a lot of fun.
VF: Yeah.
LBM: And our folks never worried about us because they knew when we were at the Club it was safe – oh, it was safe in those days, anyway.
VF: Surely, yes.
RSG: Was Gertrude Ederle the name of this girl?
LBM: Charlotte Boyle – Ethelda Bleibtry and Charlotte Boyle –
VF: They swam with the Duke?
LBM: Duke Kahanamoku, yes –
RSG: They came from Australia and New Zealand –
LBM: Just to swim – Yes, that’s right. And it was that picture – I don’t know whether it was this picture or not – but it was something like this and it was blown way up and hung in the bar.
VF: Really.
LBM: I don’t think they appreciated it being in the bar.
VF: Oh, maybe not – oh dear. When you surfed did you use just boards that were there at the Club, or did you have your own boards?
LBM: I had my own board.
RSG: I had my own, too.
VF: What were your boards made of?
RSG: Redwood – solid redwood. They were the heaviest things you ever heard of.
LBM: Redwood and pine.
VF: It is hard – very hard to picture a girl with these heavy, heavy boards.
LBM: Well, mine wasn’t that heavy because it was small – but the men’s were heavy and once in a while we would borrow one, if they would let us – the older boys, if they would let us – borrow one of their boards and there is a knack –
VF: How did you learn to surf? Did anybody teach you ladies?
LBM: A little bit, yes. Before I even joined the Club – when I first went down to the beach, my brother had met Hiram Anahu. He was a lovely, lovely Hawaiian fellow that was at the Moana – and he worked there – in the locker rooms – men’s locker rooms. And, of course, I got to meet him through my brother – and he was a little older – of course, he was a young man – and he taught us how to surf. Maunawahi! No charge or anything.
VF: Isn’t that marvelous.
LBM: He just got to like my brother and when I met him, then he got to like me, too, and I knew him for years – always the nicest person. And he took us beside the little wall there that used to be between the Outrigger and the Moana – There used to be a groin that went out and formed little waves that came in there. We graduated, you see.
RSG: Yes.
LBM: He started us there and showed us how to get on the board. He’d push us – and how to get up. So, just a few times, he showed us what to do. Then, of course, after I joined the Outrigger, then I started to surf over in what they call “Cornucopia” which is right straight out and you can stand and shove your board. It’s a fine place for youngsters to learn to surf. From there we graduated out to “Big Surf” – canoe surf where the canoes and the other older fellows were. But I never got out to “First Break”. I never would risk that – that was too big.
VF: How about you, Ruth? Where did you learn?
RSG: Well, I learned just by hook or crook – just doing it by myself. My board was very heavy and I figured if I could carry it out there I had better learn how to surf – so I did. But you should have seen the front of it – (Gestures) It went like this.
VF: What was all that?
RSG: I used to “pearl dive”. “Pearl dive” into the coral – Hard on the board.
VF: Where did you usually surf? Out in front of the Outrigger?
RSG: I’d go out to “Big Surf”.
LBM: Out in front of the Moana –
VF: The Moana –
LBM: Where the fellows all surfed – the Moana – “Big Surf”.
VF: Did you keep your boards at the Outrigger?
RSG: Yes. We had lockers for our boards there.
VF: So you didn’t have to take them home all the time.
LBM: Oh, no. We couldn’t possibly have carried them home – And, of course, the people didn’t have the cars then to go to these other places to surf. And anyway, I doubt if they could have used these great big boards on the surf where they go now – the “Pipeline” and “North Shore”. They used the kind of big boards with the skegs for that kind of surfing.
VF: Did you ever swim – when you were in competition – in the Natatorium?
LBM: Oh yes, I did, because that was built in ’26 and that’s – they swam in that – for the long 100-yard course they used to use Pier 5 and when the Natatorium was built, then we started using that instead of going down there.
VF: Yes, of course they have the bleachers there – built right in – good for watching – yeah –
RSG: Yes, it was a very nice place to go.
LBM: But I didn’t like it near as well as I did down at the dock – I mean so far as seeing went. Because down at the dock – of course, they built bleachers – they put bleachers or the open dock.
VF: I was going to ask –
LBM: The face of the dock was quite wide – wide enough to put bleachers on each side of Pier 5 and then, as I said, there were two coal barges, and the starting platforms on each end of the dock – of the Pier – of the slip and, of course, the diving platforms and everything. And then they strung lights across, overhead. They were the big round green tops with the globe underneath, sort of, you know with white underneath for good reflection. And when the race was on, the lights over the bleachers went out so the people were in darkness and all the light was concentrated just down on the swimmers and no matter where you were – you could see them clear as a bell at both ends of the course. And over all the Natatorium – they had the lights on the side – sort of down on the water.
VF: Yes, I’ve seen them.
LBM: And it sort of shone in the peoples’ eyes in the bleachers so you couldn’t really see at all.
VF: Not a good way to see at all.
LBM: And it was not near as clear.
RSG: And it was good for the swimmers down at the docks, too.
VF: When did they stop using the dock area?
LBM: I would imagine when this was opened – the Natatorium – I think that they stopped.
VF: That’s too bad. It sounds like it might have looked like a huge – a super huge pool – the way they closed it in.
LBM: Yes. And then I don’t know what they did for the men, but for the girls – inside the warehouse they slung up a tarpaulin –
VF: Uh-huh –
LBM: And it seemed almost every time we had a swimming meet there was always some youngster climbing up – some young fellows – from somewhere – one of the dock guys – climbing up to take a peak.
VF: Oh, honestly!
LBM: And, in fact a lot of youngsters used to swim underneath – underneath the pilings and watch the races.
VF: From there – yes.
LBM: I was in the Ala Moana post office – OK – about ten years or so ago and I walked up to the clerk and he looked up and he said “Aren’t you Lillie Bowmer?” and I said “Yes” and he said “I used to watch you swim – I used to swim underneath and watch – underneath the piling.”
VF: Isn’t that something! Oh!
LBM: He said “I used to watch you –“. And he recognized me. And he had never even known me, you know. I didn’t know who he was.
RSG: I met a man who first came up to me and he said “I used to watch you swim.” I said “I think you have made a mistake” and he said “No” and he gave me my name. He said “I went to all the races. I watched you.”
LBM: Oh, my!
RSG: That really was something. You know that’s fifty years ago!
VF: Isn’t that something!
RSG: In fact that’s almost 70 years ago – (Laughter)
LBM: Oh no, not 70 –
RSG: Just about – for me – because you know at 13 –
VF: That’s right. (Pause) (Still looking at pictures)
VF: What was this? The Seaside Hotel? Is that the name of it? Right beside the Outrigger?
LBM: Right next to the Outrigger on the ewa side and it was just a low frame building – open dining room and the offices were alongside and small cottages through the grounds – they were very lovely grounds as I remember and – oh, I thought – for the Islands – that was what I think was a typical Island hotel.
VF: Yes – And what did you kids used to do? You used to – (Laughter)
LBM: We were sometimes supposed to meet Dad there – wait for Dad there – all of us, and of course, did you ever see a youngster that sat still for two minutes?
VF: Never.
LBM: And we were running around and we would dash into the dining room and swipe a lump of sugar or something, once in a while, and I am sure they would just have wished we hadn’t come around.
VF: When was that?
LBM: That was about 1920, ’21, ’22 –’20, ’21 I guess, when Dad used to pick us up, ‘cause I lived in Waikiki then.
VF: For the training program?
LBM: Yes, Friday nights. Probably we would have eaten over in the Outrigger. All of us would have met – somebody bought a can of beans, or a can of spaghetti and we mixed it all together – had sandwiches and that would be our dinner once in a while. And then we’d walk over to the Seaside Hotel. And that was torn down to build the Royal Hawaiian. It was built on that site. And the Royal Hawaiian was built in ’26 – and so it was there until then.
VF: This is really fascinating. (Pause)
VF: I’d like to ask about the – exactly what the Women’s Auxiliary really was. What it was exactly.
LBM: Well, the Women’s Auxiliary – the Auxiliary – was part of the Outrigger – at least when I joined, so it must have been from the very beginning – almost the very beginning of the Club. And they had their – they used the women’s dressing rooms that we used, too, as young girls, and they had a separate area. Now I don’t remember whether they had a kitchen or not – a little kitchen.
RSG: They must have had, because they were always having tea out in front.
LBM: And they had their own separate chairs and – like a little hau terrace. It was separate from the other part and, of course – I presume they could have used the Outrigger premises also – which were right together – they were just right together – except that they just had a separate place if they wanted to be by themselves.
VF: What was that area that you mentioned, Ruth? (Laughter – unclear)
RSG: I don’t know whether I should call it that but there was a waterway, shall we say – a drainage ditch that came between the Moana and the Outrigger and it wasn’t the most fragrant or beautiful place to swim –
VF: Oh, dear.
RSG: In fact the bathhouse was really there –
LBM: Yes, the bathhouse was really – beside the lagoon.
VF: The bathhouse of the Outrigger?
RSG: the Women’s Auxiliary bathhouse –
VF: I see.
LBM: And I suppose we were considered part of the Women’s Auxiliary when we were there, too.
VF: When you were swimming – all you girls?
LBM: Of course, it was the Outrigger. Of course, we used the other things, too – of the Outrigger –
RSG: We used to have our massages there, remember, at the end.
LBM: Yes, the room at the end of the women’s bathhouse and then – the women had a section, too, right beside the bathhouse – and beside this lagoon – it was on that side – and they had their own rocking chairs and tables and things there. I presume they could have – Ruth, you said they made tea.
RSG: I don’t know whether they made it there or on the other side and brought it over.
VF: Did the men ever come over to that area?
RSG: Well, they might have – they were husbands and wives, you know.
LBM: They were the wives of the members.
RSG: They just went in and out.
VF: Now did it then become the Uluniu? Was that still part of the Outrigger?
RSG: I’m not too sure and I may be very wrong – there was some confusion there – a misunderstanding about running the club – and so the women said they would go on their own. And I think they took another piece of – no, they were still there next to the Seaside. Remember when they put the bathhouse over there?
LBM: Then they moved on the other side of the Outrigger – after the Outrigger was renovated.
VF: To the Diamond Head side?
LBM: No, they went to the Seaside – ewa side of the Outrigger. This was all changed – the Outrigger had renovated – I really didn’t pay much attention to it.
RSG: No, we didn’t.
LBM: Then they did – but I know that they must have separated because when they called it the Uluniu Club they were separate. And they had their own bathhouse between the Royal and the Outrigger – the Royal Hotel.
RSG: And had the same strict old rules in the bathhouse – as we had in the Auxiliary bathhouse.
VF: In the Auxiliary bathhouse?
LBM: And then, of course, by that time we had our own bathhouse – nearer Kalakaua, at the Outrigger, that was ours – That Uluniu was separate – and you had to join. Did you, I never did?
RSG: No.
VF: That’s interesting.
LBM: At the Outrigger they had moved one half, one portion, a smaller half, or portion, I don’t know if it was a big one or not – of the pavilion – was moved to the back of the lot – or the front – I don’t know, whichever you want to call it – toward Kalakaua Avenue – nearer Kalakaua Avenue. And then they built locker rooms – dressing rooms under there with showers, and we had the girl there too.
VF: For the women.
RSG: And the young girls – altogether in the same place.
LBM: And we only had cold showers. There were no hot showers, no soap, no extra towels or anything; had to have your own towel and you could leave your bathing suit there. Of course, it had a number on it and a number on the towel and they would drop down a shoot which we had right from the very beginning and we always had a girl there, somebody to wash them.
RSG: Remember Helen? And her daughter?
LBM: Helen, yes. And do you remember Yoshi?
RSG: Oh, yes.
LBM: She was a pretty little girl, Japanese girl, and she used to come once in a while in a pretty kimono – and that was when I first belonged to the Club. She was just a young girl – a Japanese girl. And remember when she was going to get married and she was telling us all about it? We were all so excited.
VF: What did she do? What was Yoshi?
LBM: She had charge of the bathing suits and everything – the towels and all and they had boxes, you know like – in the separate room, and you just asked you – your – of course, she got to know you and she would hand you your bathing suit and towel and she had charge of that. The locker rooms, in other words, – or the dressing rooms, too. I guess maybe she had to clean them out. I don’t know – remember who kept them clean.
RSG: They didn’t have dressing rooms did they? Wasn’t that just one great big room?
LBM: No, there were separate dressing rooms. We always used to take the one way at the end because the women used to be so shocked because we would take a shower, drop our suit down the shoot –
RSG: Oh yes, run in the nude!
LBM: Then, after the shower – then run all the way down to the last dressing room! Way down at the end!
RSG: And that was just too much for them!
VF: Too shocking for them!
LBM: They thought that was terrible!
RSG: How we have changed!
VF: Oh, indeed!
LBM: The only place we had – we used to change when we were training – when we would go training down at the docks – you know – for a meet – before they had – we used to go to the rowing club there –
RSG: Oh, yes.
LBM: The men’s rowing club – the Myrtle or Healani – I don’t know which.
RSG: Myrtle, I think.
LBM: Myrtles – and we’d go there and change, and of course that’s like a men’s locker room – was all just one – open, you know there were no rooms and that’s when we used to change there – then go over to Pier 5 and train, or Pier 2 – one of the docks there – just for practice down there before they were going to have a big meet – and that was a lot of fun, too.
VF: Yes, really fascinating how you did all of these things. When you went to meets on the outer Islands and so forth, how did you get over – Did you go by ship at the time or did you – ?
LBM: I never went to the other Islands.
VF: How about you, Ruth?
RSG: There were little inter-island ships –
VF: Like a ferry?
RSG: Oh yes, the Mauna Loa – the Mauna Kea and the Mauna Loa and the Kinau, I think –
LBM: And small – the Bee and the Hornet; they were small craft.
RSG: They were such fun!
VF: Dad would escort you young ladies – and did you have anybody else that went along?
RSG: There was always a chaperone even to go up to training. Oh yes – definitely –
LBM: Mrs. Moses, Helen Moses’ mother, was our chaperone even on training nights.
VF: Even on training nights – you had someone?
RSG: Yes, definitely – always – these women wouldn’t trust – (Laughter)
RSG: What a time he would have had – oh, my, what fun!
VF: Was there some procedure you had to follow in taking out the canoes, etc.? Could you take one out any time you wanted? Or did you have to sign out or anything?
LBM: Well, I think we had to let somebody know we were going to take them out.
RSG: I think we signed in a book – a pencil was tied onto the book, you remember – ?
LBM: I think with Sasaki – because they had to be sure that we took a bailing bucket along and how many paddles we had. But there was no question about our taking them out even before they knew whether we could steer or even paddle well or not.
VF: Or could swim?
LBM: Oh, we all could swim – anyhow, we all could swim. We didn’t go with anybody or take anybody that couldn’t and many times – sometimes the boys and girls would go out together in one of the larger canoes and we’d tip the canoe over just for fun – on a wave.
VF: Uh-huh.
LBM: And then I would always have to get in and bail because I was the smallest and the lightest and I’d have to bail it – get enough water out – so somebody bigger could get in and finish bailing. But, as I say, that was part of the fun just to do it.
VF: What about the sailing? I saw a picture of a sailing canoe. Can you tell me something about that? I never see them nowadays.
LBM: Dad and Edric Cook and a number of the older fellows got the big canoe – a great big one – the one I think they called the Princess – They were big canoes –
VF: How big would you guess?
LBM: Well, they were for six people –
RSG: Oh, Dad’s big canoe – the big koa canoe.
LBM: Yes.
RSG: And that was the one they put the sail on –
LBM: And then we’d – he’d take a number of – two or three of the older fellows and some of the younger ones – and I went out two or three times, too – and we all had a chance to go. And the lighter ones, he’d put out on the ama to balance it – when it was – when the wind would hit the sail and it would lift – to keep it from tipping over.
VF: How did they steer?
LBM: With a regular steering paddle.
VF: Just the same as if they were paddling?
LBM: Just the same as if they were on a wave – they steered it that way.
VF: Oh, my.
LBM: And it was very exciting.
VF: Go pretty fast?
LBM: Yes, – oh, quite fast if they got a good stiff breeze. It was a lot of fun.
VF: Where –
RSG: It was easy to tip over, too – and then it was a mess to get the sail and all –
VF: Do you know how the sail – how the mast was put into the boat? How they – ?
LBM: Well, they came down through – well, I think it was next to the ama, wasn’t it?
RSG: Here’s a picture. Can you get it from that?
VF: Man – was it specially rigged for sail?
LBM: Oh yes, they had to –
RSG: You couldn’t do that to just any one there.
LBM: No, no, the canoe was fixed with a board, I think, with a hole through it, that the mast set in and it was very strong and I think there was some kind of binding, or something, that they had to fix first to keep it in.
VF: Keep that in –
LBM: It was specially fixed so that it would hold the mast, because it would need something very sturdy. And it was a sturdy canoe, too, that they used.
RSG: It was more fun than just a regular sail boat, wasn’t it?
LBM: Oh, I thought so, too. The ama would go way up – and the Outrigger would go up and then come down –
VF: How did you hang on to the ama? How did you stay on?
LBM: You sat down on it.
RSG: You had a cross-section – you know.
VF: Oh, my heavens.
LBM: Sometimes they had a board across – but usually we –
RSG: Sat right on here – (Looking at the picture)
LBM: You can see the fellow stepping out on it – see!
VF: Oh, yea. Oh, my gosh – Right on the end there.
LBM: And here’s two of them out on it. It’s a matter of balancing –
VF: With a canvas, probably a canvas sail?
LBM: Yes, with a big canvas sail – and that was really a lot of fun. I’m surprised they haven’t done it here –
VF: Yeah – Of course, now they have this sail-surfing.
LBM: And they have these little catamarans – these small –
VF: Did they have anything like that – other than the sailing canoe, in those days?
LBM: No, no catamarans. They had – I’m sure they had yachts – small yacht sailing –
VF: They did?
RSG: But not as much as they do now, of course.
LBM: Of course, they also had – the Outrigger also, you know, had – didn’t they have their own regular rowing – not paddling, but rowing?
VF: You read about rowing, but I’ve never seen any pictures of –
RSG: Down at the Myrtles – the Myrtle Boat Club.
LBM: The Myrtle and Healani Clubs – and I didn’t know whether the Outrigger had a team or not.
RSG: They did – they went down there.
LBM: Down there, I think they went down there on the regular rowing barges, as they call them. And also the Outrigger had a football team, too!
VF: It did! Where in the world did they practice?
LBM: Well, I suppose at Moiliili Field –
VF: Uh-huh –
LBM: Because I remember seeing a big picture of the whole team – Yeah.
RSG: Yes. I remember that.
VF: Oh, for heavens’ sakes!
LBM: I suppose it was either just about my time or before my time.
RSG: What happened to Dad’s canoe?
LBM: I don’t know –
VF: That’s a good question.
RSG: It was a great big beautiful koa canoe.
VF: Koa canoe –
RSG: Oh, it was gorgeous!
VF: And the Princess – is that the same canoe?
RSG: Yes, I believe it was.
VF: They were discussing a canoe at a meeting –
RSG: Oh, were they?
VF: And that might be the one.
RSG: Yes, that might be it.
VF: Were there ever any sort of celebrations or holidays that the Outrigger did get involved in?
LBM: Well, I imagine that there were some – I imagine – Regatta Day –
RSG: I think they got into some celebrations of sorts, for that was really a holiday in the old days.
VF: For the whole State? Oh.
RSG: Yes, for the whole Territory.
LBM: And they also at one time – I don’t know what the occasion was – but they had like a parade of boats down in Honolulu Harbor and I was asked to be on one of the floats and it was with another – with a boy – Bouldin Burbank – and Enay Makinney, and we were on surfboards and they had made a wave in back of us with palm fronds. That came up – just sort of curled over the top of us and we stood on the surfboards as though we were on a wave. We were part of – one of the floats – and that was the Outrigger –
RSG: Did they take a picture of that?
LBM: I don’t know whether they did or not. I never saw any picture.
VF: And that was the Outrigger entry.
LBM: Outrigger float.
VF: How were you propelled? Was a boat pulling you?
LBM: Well, I guess there must have been something pulling us – you know, or maybe just on a barge or something, I guess.
RSG: A barge.
LBM: I don’t really remember. It was so long ago. But that must have been –
RSG: Gosh, I guess I was about 13, 14 –
VF: Didn’t you mention you were on a sail boat? At about that time?
RSG: I was in a sail canoe in one of those things – I don’t remember, it must have been ahead of this – but they didn’t have floats – they had boats, and they had racing with the Myrtle and Healani – and all that –
LBM: Oh, Regatta Day – they would have had boat crews because that was a big celebration in the Islands in the old days – Regatta Day.
VF: Well, now, this sailing canoe was racing with a sail?
RSG: I don’t know whether we were racing or just having a heck of a good time. But anyway, I was having a good time (Laughter) – whether they were racing – ?
LBM: That’s great!
VF: Well, I think that unless you can remember anything else – this has been a lovely interview. I think you have just told us so much, it’s fantastic.
RSG: Well, thanks to Dad Center – believe me, he was really the talented – the moving light. We really appreciate what he did.
LBM: When I look back at the time he gave to the swimming and the training of all us youngsters – and was so patient – and many of the young ones – a lot of the young ones – were so full of the Old Nick – and he still was very – you know, very patient with everybody. And thanks also to Sasaki and all the old people.
RSG: He wasn’t very patient.
LBM: No, he wasn’t, but he was really very nice – oh, I couldn’t but oh, goodness – he had all those kids trying to get what they could out of him, you know.
RSG: Trying to sneak a little more chocolate sauce – and some of the guys would –
VF: You must have had a marvelous, marvelous time at the Club.
LBM: We certainly, certainly did and as I’ve said many times to other people – whenever I have thought about the days that I spent there – and I imagine you felt the same, too, Ruth –
RSG: I do now.
LBM: Was to say – “Thanks for the memories.”
RSG: Every time I walk by it, I think – you people don’t know anything about the Outrigger Club. We were the ones who really did love it.
LBM: We didn’t have all the fancy things they have here, as I mentioned before – we had just cold water showers – but we wouldn’t have given it up for anything.
RSG: No!
LBM: If we had to relive it again I would want it just the same way.
VF: Oh – well, thank you very, very much, Ruth Scudder Gillmar and Lillie Mackenzie. It’s just been wonderful. You’ve been so helpful. Thanks so much.
RSG: Thank you very much.
LBM: Thank you.
Editor’s note: The girls did not mention that while they were in high school at Punahou along with Dorothy Waters, Mariechen Wehselau, Helen Moses, Christine Smoot and Helen Ellis, they were the swimming instructors for the regular school physical education program – instead of the school having an adult teacher. Classes were scheduled for their instruction – and Dad Center kept a watchful eye on the program and gave support to “his girls”.