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EUGENE BARNEY ABIANG, 50, of Kailua, died April 2, 2000. Born in Honolulu. A surfboard laminator. Survived by wife, Stephanie; daughters, Nicolette, Noelle, Breana and Cherie; sister, Donna Abiang-Juranits and Anita Allen; brothers, Ambrose Bolante, Max and Darryl Bantangan. Visitation 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Friday at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Kailua First Ward; service 12:30 p.m. Burial 2 p.m. at Hawaiian Memorial Park Cemetery. Aloha attire.
ERNEST ANDRADE JR., 73, of Boulder, Colorado, died March 17, 2000. Born in Honolulu. A retired University of Colorado professor of history. Survived by wife, Ruth; son, Dale; daughter, Lynne Andrade Allison; six grandchildren. Memorial service June 22 at National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. Arrangements by Erlinger Cremation & Funeral Service.
VIOLET ILIHIA LUDLOFF DESHA, 95, of Honolulu, died March 30, 2000. Survived by daughters, Edwina Bush and Harriett Desha; brother, Kenneth Ludloff; sister, Lei Wassman; four grandchildren; six great-grandchildren. Visitation 8:30 a.m. Sunday at Borthwick Mortuary; service 10:30 a.m. Casual attire.
MARY RACHAEL DORMAN, 80, of Ho-nolulu, died March 27, 2000. Born in Illinois. Widow of Dan E. Dorman, former board chairman and CEO of First Hawaiian Bank. Member of Queen’s Festival of Trees and the Roving Rembrandts. Private service held. Memorial donations to Queen’s Festival of Trees c/o The Queen’s Medical Center or to a favorite charity. Arrangements by Borthwick Mortuary.
EULYNNE “LYNN” LEIHUALANI DUMAYAG, was a resident of Ewa Beach, Oahu. Visitation will take place 8:30 to 10 a.m. Saturday at Ewa-Immaculate Conception Church; service 10 a.m.; Mass 10:30 a.m. Updated information was provided by the mortuary.
MILTON ENGLISH, 69, of Honolulu, died March 29, 2000. Born in Makawae, Hawaii. Employed with Chaney Brooks & Co. Survived by wife, Claudine; brother, Ralph; sisters, Myra Gibbs and Winona Gulick. Ashes to be scattered at sea. Arrangements by Diamond Head Mortuary.
ROBERT “BOBBY” GOMES, 69, of Pahoa, Hawaii, died April 2, 2000. Born in Hilo, Hawaii. A retired supervisor/dispatcher for the former Theo. H. Davies Building Materials. Survived by wife, Sally; sons, Russell, Arnold, Eric and Eliot; sisters, Bernice Costa, Elsie Fontes and Lorene Delatorre; seven grandchildren. Visitation 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at Dodo Mortuary chapel, Hilo; service noon. Burial at Homelani Memorial Park, Hilo. Casual attire.
ESTHER LEIMOMI “MOMI” JACKSON, 75, of Waianae, died April 3, 2000. Born in Honolulu. Retired from Hilton Hawaiian Village. Survived by sons, Raymond, Clarence DeCaires Jr., Kealoha Barrett; daughters, Barbara Jean Counts, Lucinda Goldstein, Irma Ockerman; eight grandchildren; one great-grandchild. Visitation 10 a.m. to noon Monday at Diamond Head Mortuary; service noon. Burial at Diamond Head Memorial Park. Aloha attire.
VALERIE MONA KAHAE, 45, of Kahului, Maui, died March 29, 2000. Born in Wailuku, Maui. A telemarketer. Survived by husband, Earl Sr.; sons, Earl Jr., Moses and Ralph; daughters, Leslie Gusman, Christie Furtado, Ashley Gomes, Tanya Takatani, Purity and Alana; a granddaughter; mother, Juanita Gomes; brothers, Ernest Gomes Jr., Leslie, Rocky, Ronald and George Gomes; sisters, MaryJane Kahaleaki and Juanita Tengan. Visitation 9 a.m. Saturday at St. Ann Church, Waihee; service 11 a.m. Burial noon at Waihee Cemetery. Casual attire. Arrangements by Nakamura Mortuary.
AMELIA PAGE KUUIPO KING, 65, of San Jose, Calif., died March 25, 2000. Survived, among others, by sister, Louis Hancock Anoipua Furtado. Burial 1 p.m. Friday at Hawaiian Memorial Park Cemetery.
TATSUE NAKASHIMA, 96, of Hilo, died March 25, 2000. Born in Kalaoa Papaikou, Hawaii. A homemaker. Survived by sons, Richard, Takeshi and Tadashi; daughters, Hisano Pearl Furukawa, Harumi Sato, Lillian Miki and Hatsue Hats Kamimura; 11 grandchildren; 14 great-grandchildren. Private service held. Arrangements by Borthwick Hawaii Funeral Home.
ETHEL MOMOKO TONAKI OTANI, 80, of Honolulu, died April 3, 2000. Born in Wailuku, Maui. A retired Thrifty Drug Store sales clerk. Survived by sons, Wayne and Mitchell; daughters, Carol Hanold and Kathleen; four grandchildren; sisters, Elsie Oshiro, Jane Kobayashi and Gladys Yoshimura. Visitation 1 to 2 p.m. Saturday at Holy Nativity Episcopal Church; service 2 p.m.. No flowers. Casual attire. Arrangements by Hosoi Garden Mortuary.
WALTER TOSHIYA SHIIGI, 76, of Pearl City, died April 2, 2000. Born in Pahoa, Hawaii. A retired enforcement branch supervisor with the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. A 442nd Regimental Combat Team veteran. Survived by companion, Nancy Owen; sons, David and Scott; brothers, Seigo and Richard; sister, Alice Chinen; three grandchildren. Visitation 5:30 to 9 p.m. Saturday at Hawaiian Memorial Park Mortuary; 6:30 p.m. Inurnment noon Monday at Hawaiian Memorial Park Cemetery. No flowers. Casual attire.
KAZUMI TANAKA, 73, of Kahului, Maui, died April 4, 2000. Born in Paia, Maui. A mason retired from Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company. Survived by wife, Ethel; son, Glenn; brothers, Akira and Wayne. Visitation 3 p.m. Sunday at Nakamura Mortuary; service 4 p.m. Reception to follow. Arrangements by Nakamura Mortuary.
MARY ANN LUIS TEPEDINO, 75, of Oxon Hill, Md., died March 24, 2000. Born in Honolulu. A graduate of Sacred Hearts Academy. Survived by husband, Louis; nieces, nephews and an uncle. Visitation 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. Thursday at Diamond Head Mortuary; service 3:30 p.m. Burial at a later date at Diamond Head Memorial Park. Casual attire.
GAIL O’ROURKE WONG, 57, of Honolulu, died April 3, 2000. Born in New York. A member of the 1964 U.S. Olympic Volleyball Team. Survived by son, Adam; mother, Alyce O’Rourke; brother, Brian O’Rourke; sister, Terri O’Rourke. Visitation 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Monday at Star of the Sea Church; Mass 7:30 p.m. Inurnment 9:45 a.m. Tuesday at Diamond Head Memorial Park. Casual attire. Arrangements by Diamond Head Mortuary.
Kathryn Ruggles, 97, dies
Kathryn Elston Ruggles, former social director at the Halekulani Hotel, died Monday at the age of 97.
Ruggles was the social director at Halekulani from 1934 to 1940 and again from 1955 to 1959. In 1940, she helped to decorate the Naniloa Hotel in Hilo and later became the executive in charge of entertainment at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs.
In 1944, she returned to Hawaii as visitor’s director at Dole Hawaiian Pineapple Co., where she worked until she returned to the Halekulani in 1955.
Ruggles is survived by a sister, Alice Hollingsworth; grandchildren, Geoffrey Avery and Linda Culverhouse; and great-grandchildren, Heather, Ryan and Koa Avery, and Kainoa Culverhouse.
Graveside services tomorrow at 3 p.m. in the Bahai Garden of Light, Hawaiian Memorial Park. Donations can be made to the Bahai Humanitarian Fund, 3264 Allen Place, Honolulu, HI 96817.
Leon Sterling Jr. dies
KAILUA-KONA, Hawaii - Leon Sterling Jr., a lay minister known for three decades as “Kona’s kahu,” died at his home Monday after a long illness. He was 83.
A Native Hawaiian activist, Sterling had been a farmer, a uranium miner, a college football star, a noted veteran of World War II and a Kona community leader.
He was a delegate to the 1978 state Constitutional Convention and was chairman of the Big Island planning commission. A cousin of Olympic swimmer Duke Kahanamo-ku, Sterling made his mark as an all-star college lineman at Oregon State.
Sterling moved to Kona in 1968 to raise avocados. Soon he was reopening shuttered churches.
Once criticized for “blessing anything and marrying anyone,” Sterling responded that “I am not good enough to judge.”
As a soldier during World War II, he participated in the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
Surviving are his wife, Leilani; a son, Robert Ahia; a half-brother, Robert; a half-sister, Leona; two granddaughters; and a great-grandson.
A community memorial service will begin at 11 a.m. Saturday at Helani Congregational Church in Holualoa. Visitation begins at 10 a.m. Casual attire, no flowers. Dodo Mortuary is handling arrangements.
Grace Guslander, visionary hotelier, dies
Grace Buscher Guslander, 89, who helped define the image of a Polynesian resort as the manager of the Coco Palms Hotel on Kauai, died at her Wailua home yesterday.
She combined fantasy, mystery, Polynesian culture and palm trees to create a world that tourists loved to visit, and thousands of hotel rooms around the Pacific succeeded based in part on that vision.
“She was a grand lady and a truly legendary figure in the hospitality industry,” said Kauai Mayor Maryanne Kusaka.
By 1965, 12 years after taking over her first and only resort property, her fame as a hotelier was global. She was named Outstanding Hotel Manager of the Year from among an international selection. She was named “Man of the Year” at New York City’s International Hotel, Motel and Restaurant Show in 1979, the first woman to win the title.
Two of the hotel managers she trained, who remained close friends, were at her side when she died.
“Visitors were looking for magic, and when they came here, they found what they truly thought Hawaii should be. They found it at Coco Palms,” said author David Penhallow, who left the hotel to manage the Hanalei Plantation Hotel, and later served as administrative assistant to Kauai Mayor Tony Kunimura and as an educator.
“She defined Hawaiian hospitality as the industry knows it today. She set the standard,” said Lopaka Mansfield, a former assistant manager under Guslander who now runs Waimea Plantation Cottages.
She came to the hotel industry along a circuitous route from her Collegeville, Pa., home. She worked as an astrologer’s assistant in Atlantic City, as a claims clerk in the Judge Advocate’s Office at Fort Shafter, and as credit manager for a gourmet shop in Waikiki.
She wrote a wine and food column for The Advertiser starting in 1952, and caught the eye of Moana Hotel Manager Lyle Guslander.
Guslander in 1953 leased the Coco Palms property, on ancient royal fishponds under the shade of palm trees that had been part of an old copra plantation. He asked the then Grace Buscher to run it for him.
She took the 24-room inn and began molding it into her vision of what Hawaiian tourism should offer.
There were the giant clam shells imported from the South Pacific to serve as bathroom sinks. And the monkeys in the zoo set back in the palms. Artifacts from across the Pacific adorned the place.
She invented the torch-lighting ceremony, turning a nightly maintenance chore into an evening spectacular, with muscular young men jogging along the hotel paths spinning torches as they set the night on fire.
Outrigger canoes were pulled up on shore, and set off across the shallow lagoons for special events.
The wedding of Elvis Presley in the movie, “Blue Hawaii,” was performed aboard a double canoe in the Coco Palms lagoon. The thatched hut in which Elvis stayed during the filming is now considered a historic landmark.
Weddings became big business at the Coco Palms, often in the chapel that Guslander converted from a movie-set chapel for Rita Heyworth’s 1953 film, “Miss Sadie Thompson.” Even though the hotel was closed after 1992’s Hurricane Iniki, veteran Coco Palms entertainer Larry Rivera still oversees weddings on the grounds.
Grace was famous for producing legends to fit any occasion. When newly introduced frogs kept people awake at night, she called for a legend, and the croaks became a natural part of the mysterious Hawaiian night.
She also was known for the golf cart she drove all over her resort property, and for a family relationship with her staff that endured well beyond her retirement from the hotel.
When Lyle Guslander sold the hotel chain in 1969, the two married. But Grace worked until 1985, continually upgrading the visitor experience she pretty much invented.
Funeral arrangements had not been completed late yesterday.
Grace Guslander, 89
LIHUE, Kauai - Funeral for Grace Buscher Guslander, 89, one of Hawaii’s premier hoteliers and longtime manager of the Coco Palms Hotel, have been scheduled for Monday at the Lihue United Church.
Friends from the travel industry and government are invited to visit from 8:45 to 9:30 a.m., former Coco Palms guests and employees and their families from 9:30 to 10 a.m., and members of Hawaiian societies and organizations from 10 to 10:30 a.m.
The service will begin at 11 a.m.
Guslander built Coco Palms, a quiet hotel wrapped around still lagoons in a former coconut plantation, into the prototype for classic Polynesian resorts. Her personal relationships with guests and her employees endeared her to both.
Her respect for Hawaiian culture and tradition brought her close to many in the Hawaiian community. Sarah Kailikea is expected to perform a chant she wrote years ago for Guslander. The late Rev. Abraham Akaka gave the hotelkeeper the Hawaiian name Hemoleleikamalie, from a line in a classic Kauai song.
Guslander died at her Wailua, Kauai, home Wednesday. She was born Oct. 25, 1910, in Pennsylvania.
