Flora Hayes is translating letters of Isle kings, queens and princes

By DENBY FAWCETT

Flora Kaai Hayes, who couldn’t pass her academic course at Kamehameha School for Girls in 1913, has become one of the Bishop Museum’s most avid scholars of Hawaiiana.

Mrs. Hayes, a former seven-term member of the Territorial House of Representatives, is translating from Hawaiian the letters of King Kalakaua, Queen Kapiolani and Prince Kuhio.

“I was so mischievous that the officials at Kamehameha wouldn’t pass me fromthe academic department,” she said.

Sneaking off the campus to buy see-moi, cakes, candy and pie for her dormitory pals, who claimed they were starving from the institutional food, was one of her special pranks. Continue reading →