Judith A. Bennett - Mothers Darlings of the South Pacific

MOTHERS DARLINGS OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC

The Children of Indigenous Women and U.S. Servicemen, World War II

Edited by

Judith A. Bennett and Angela Wanhalla

University of Hawaii Press

Honolulu

Kindly supported by the Marsden Fund Council from Government funding, administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand

University of Hawaii Press

www.uhpress.hawaii.edu

2016 University of Hawaii Press

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bennett, Judith A., editor. | Wanhalla, Angela, editor.

Title: Mothers darlings of the South Pacific : the children of indigenous women and US servicemen, World War II / editors, Judith A. Bennett and Angela Wanhalla.

Description: Honolulu : University of Hawaii Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015035917 | ISBN 9780824851521 cloth : alk. paper

Subjects: LCSH: Pacific Islander AmericansOceania. | Children of military personnelOceania. | Abandoned childrenOceania.

Classification: LCC DU28.1.P25 M68 2016 | DDC 940.53/1610830995dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015035917

ISBN for this edition:

978-0-8248-5827-8 (EPUB)

978-0-8248-5828-5 (Kindle)

Also available:

ISBN: 978-0-8248-5828-5 (Kindle)

ISBN: 978-0-8248-5827-8 (EPUB)

ISBN: 978-0-8248-5829-2 (PDF)

ISBN: 978-0-8248-5152-1 (Cloth)

For further information, please visit:

www.uhpress.hawaii.edu

To all the mothers and their darlings across the South Pacific and beyond

Stories do not explain. They seem to, but all they provide is a starting point. A story never ends at the end. There is always after. And even within itself, even by saying that this version is the right one, it suggests other versions, versions that exist in parallel. No, a story is not an explanation; it is a net, a net through which the truth flows. The net catches some of the truth, but not all, never all, only enough so that we can live with the extraordinary without it killing us.

C ONTENTS

JUDITH A. BENNETT

JUDITH A. BENNETT AND ANGELA WANHALLA

JUDITH A. BENNETT

SAUIA LOUISE MATAIA-MILO

KATHRYN CREELY

JUDITH A. BENNETT

JUDITH A. BENNETT

JUDITH A. BENNETT

JACQUELINE LECKIE AND ALUMITA DURUTALO

ANGELA WANHALLA AND KATE STEVENS

JUDITH A. BENNETT

ROSEMARY ANDERSON

JUDITH A. BENNETT

ANGELA WANHALLA, JUDITH A. BENNETT, AND ROSEMARY ANDERSON

A CKNOWLEDGMENTS

Above all, we thank our participants for sharing their stories and lives with us. We mention many by name in the accounts, and others are there under pseudonyms. We felt honored to have had your contributions and hope this book will help you and others to more fully know that your lives and those of your families continue to have significance. We also remember with gratitude those who have passed on during this research and the many dead who can no longer tell their stories. We commend them, the dead and the living, to God.

As the chief investigator of this Mothers Darlings Project, I would like to thank all the members of the team, including those who assisted initially but later left the project for personal reasons. Special thanks go to Marsa Dodson, our first tireless research assistant who early in the project found and interviewed so many Cook Islands participants, as well as a couple of others from other countries. Her work and sensitivity in this regard were outstanding. I also thank Phyllis Herda who assisted in several ways with the Tongan aspects of the research.

I warmly thank my friend, colleague, and collaborator, Angela Wanhalla, whose even composure I can never hope to duplicate . Kate Stevens and Lucy Mackintosh supplemented Angelas interviews with research in the New Zealand archives and in U.S. newspaper records, respectively . Jacqui Leckie and Alumita Durutalo were a complementary and productive duo for research in Fiji. Sauia Louise Mataia-Milos work among the Samoan participants is a singular and courageous contribution, not without cost to her among her own people where such matters are rarely discussed beyond the family. Based in San Diego, Kathryn Creely has added particular value to this collection through her sensitive case study of a New Caledonian woman who struggled to survive in the United States but whose family there and in New Caledonia have now reconnected through Kathys patient research. We are all the richer for this history. I am especially grateful, as we all are, to Rosemary Anderson, who worked initially as a research assistant and, when the need suddenly arose, wrote the chapter on the Cook Islands, calling on her own knowledge of wartime pressures on these islands. Her persistence in tracking down lost connections with U.S. families has been a major strength of this project and of lasting benefit to the families concerned, some of whom are mentioned in the book.

The original plan for this project was for the designated research team of four plus a research assistant to work among people from particular islands. One of the designated researchers had to withdraw for personal reasons, so I took her place for one of the island groups. Because none of us was fluent in French we had decided to concentrate on islands where English was the main foreign language. Happily, I found a Wallis man, Petelo Tufale in Vanuatu. He agreed to be part of this research while Kathryn Creely, as mentioned earlier, provided a New Caledonian case study. I was able to research Bora Bora and added that as another chapter to cover the bases in the French Pacific. The rest of the teamWanhalla, Leckie, and Iworked on the islands we knew best from earlier research. I had planned to work in Samoa, but soon realized that my former student, Sauia Louise Mataia-Milo, being Samoan, could do this research far more ably, so I left it in her capable hands.

In 2010 when I was in Vanuatu doing research, by chance I met a former undergraduate student of mine. Discussion over the worst red wine Steve Talley has ever been presented with led to his interest in making a documentary related to this project. Unfortunately, this discussion occurred after our funds had already been allocated according to the strict categories of the Marsden Fund, but the University of Otago did provide substantial support. With the subsequent help of Television New Zealand (TVNZ), one of the stories of the U.S. reunion of the Beren family was broadcast on 28 August 2011 in an episode titled Generation GI of Channel Ones Sunday Program . Steve had to use his personal funds to capture the Michigan reunion on film. He and co-producer Peggy Holter were then contacted by TVNZ who happened to be covering Arthur Berens trip from the New Zealand end, and both parties agreed to share their respective footage for the Sunday Program and for the University of Otago project. A follow-up documentary made by Steve and Peggy about the return of the Willess family to American Samoa appeared on 26 April 2012, as the World War Two Love Story of Homer and Vaofefe Willess on Mori TV, New Zealand. With some reallocated funds from savings from the Marsden grant, Steve and Peggy have since made a film of the Gaeng sons search for both their U.S. father and their Mori mother. Aspects of these stories were presented in a fifty-minute documentary titled Born of Conflict, broadcast on 25 April 2014 (Anzac Day) on Mori TV, as well as on YouTube. These programs have had a major impact on peoples lives and understanding. Even as I write this in June 2014, in the last week we have had two emails and a visit from people who believe they have a U.S. father. We are grateful to TVNZ for the opportunity to bring the fruits of this research project to the public. We all thank Steve and Peggy for their unique role in doing history through film and for their patience with book-oriented historians who have learned so much from them.