Posted on: Friday, November 16, 2001
Francis Hughes, ex-Kailua druggist, dead at 87
By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer
Francis Hughes, a longtime Hawai'i druggist who opened a Kailua pharmacy four months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, died Sunday at the Pohai Nani Good Samaritan Retirement Community in Kane'ohe. He was 87.
Hughes ran three drug stores before selling his original business and a Windward City store to PayLess in 1973, and an Enchanted Lake store to an employee at a later date.
Born in Carroll, Neb., Hughes was the protege of druggist Henry Beckman, who encouraged Hughes to go to University of Nebraska and invited him to work in a Waikiki drug store when Beckman moved to Hawai'i.
To save money, Hughes hitchhiked to California, saw an ocean for the first time and boarded the Lurline for his dream voyage to Hawai'i.
In Waikiki, he met and married Mildred Smith, his first wife and the mother of their twin children, Michael and Janet.
"He would deliver a prescription to a sick person in the middle of the night," Michael Hughes said yesterday. "He was always willing to help anybody who needed help, and he extended a lot of credit that he probably never should have."
He said a favorite family wartime story was of Hughes traveling on a bicycle through Coconut Grove to his store at Oneawa and Kailua Road with Mildred sitting on the handlebars. Soldiers were on bivouac in tents under the coconut trees, and when one jumped out and yelled "Halt or I'll shoot," Hughes hit the brakes so fast that Mildred went flying.
Business boomed during the war for the town's only drug store, which provided bandages and medicine to troops stationed behind barbed wire on Kailua Beach. The store also had a post office.
Hughes' brother Hyland was also a prominent Hawai'i druggist until his retirement.
Hughes is survived by his wife, Mary, of Kane'ohe; children Michael of Oregon and Janet Hughes Rajala of California; brothers Hyland of Kailua and Stanley of Nebraska; and two grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held Monday at Pohai Nani Club House at 2 p.m. Aloha/casual attire is requested. Donations may be made to the American Cancer Society, Hawai'i Chapter.
