OUR HONOLULU
Calabash cousins in Fanning Island
By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist
The world's biggest ocean can be a small place. Ask Florence Ho. She didn't realize she was a "princess" of Fanning Island until she got there.
Fanning Island is a sand speck about 1,200 miles south of Hawai'i and only 250 miles north of the equator; population 1,600, no running water, no electricity, oodles of palm trees and a supply ship once a month if it's on time.
Florence Ho didn't know a soul on the island in December when she stepped ashore from the Norwegian Sky ocean liner. But word quickly spread that her uncle in Lahaina had married the great-granddaughter of William Greig, who founded the fabulous Fanning Island Coconut Plantation in 1857.
Greig had married Teanau Atu, sister of the king of Manahiki who had colonized the island. The children went to school in Honolulu, and a son supported the Hawaiian revolt of 1895 for which he was sentenced to death, then fined $10,000 instead.
So it's no wonder people crowded around Ho when she arrived on the island with flowers from Kona to put on the Greig graves.
"They knew more about the family than I did," she confessed. "At home we never talked about it."
However, Jimmy Ho, her retired schoolteacher husband and a history buff who founded the Hawaiian Chinese Museum, became so fascinated by her story that he's an authority.
"Most people don't have a clue about Fanning Island," said Ho. "An official of the Norwegian Cruise Line who heard me at the Hawaiian Chinese Museum asked if I'd try one lecture on board the Norwegian Sky on the voyage between Hawai'i and Fanning.
"The theater on the ship holds 250, but 500 tried to get in. I've lectured on three cruises and they've all been like that. People said they can't find information about Fanning on the Internet."
The atoll is a regular stop on the cruise, and historical links between Hawai'i and Fanning are abundant. Greig's children married there and left descendants. Hugh Greig, the son, planted Hawaiian breadfruit, mango, banana and kukui on Fanning, now huge landmarks.
Jimmy Ho said he's impressed by the improvements the cruise line has made on the atoll: support of the school system and medical services; a new pier and buildings.
"The passengers on the ships became so interested that they are helping, too," said Ho. He said tuberculosis remains a serious problem there, along with leprosy, filariasis and dysentery.
The coconut plantation and guano works have long ago shut down. People fish and grow taro. Some work on Christmas Island, a high island of 7,000 population nearby.
A British cable company built a station on Fanning in 1902. It was shelled by a German man-of-war during World War I.
Remains of the cable station and the Greig house are still there.
