By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

Life in Our Honolulu is a kaleidoscope of large and small adventures, most of which we forget the next day. I have a battered old file filled with stuff like that. I don't know what to do with it. If you're a saver, too, you can appreciate my dilemma.

People went to a lot of trouble to call up and report this information.

• Yvonne Gray called from Wai'anae. She said she opened the trunk of her car and found a little portable radio she'd forgotten all about.

"It had to be lying in that hot trunk for three years," she said. "I turned the radio on and it played music. The batteries aren't Duracell or Energizer, either. Isn't that amazing?"

• Here's an item about the sex of ships. Ships are masculine in France, Italy, Spain and Portugal. They possess no sex in Scandinavia. The Greeks call them by feminine names. And in the English-speaking world, ships are always ladies.

A yachting friend explained that this is because a sailing ship has a waist, collars, stays, laces, bonnets, ties, ribbons, chains, watches and dozens of other feminine attributes.

• Nick Hautman, city communications officer, wants to know where King Lunalilo's mother is buried. He once served as adviser in the Lunalilo Dorm at Kamehameha Schools and is convinced that Lunalilo is his guardian spirit.

Hautman found a gravestone on the grounds of Lunalilo's tomb with the inscription "Auhea Kekauluohi, 1839-1899." Also, "William Bishop Taylor, April 28, 1882 — May 20, 1956."

Lunalilo's mother was Miriam Auhea Kekauluohi, who lived in 1794-1845. So who is the younger Auhea Kekauluohi? Hautman suspects it's Lunalilo's little sister and the name below hers is her son's. He said the name Bishop probably comes from Charles Reed Bishop, who acted as foreign minister for Lunalilo.

Lunalilo's mother is mentioned in the plaque in front of the tomb but not her place of burial.

• Here's one for mystery fans: The Oct. 7, 1907, issue of The Advertiser asks, "Did the Famous Guerrilla Quantrill Die In Maui?" As you know, William Quantrill was a notorious renegade whose gang spawned Jesse James and the Younger Brothers.

There is controversy about where he died. Some historians say he was killed in a raid in Kentucky in 1865. Others say he died in a military prison.

The Advertiser quotes Aaron B. Russell, Quantrill's relative, who says: "I was with him in prison at Louisville, Ky., and knew of his mysterious escape at the time. ... Take my word for it, he died February 16, 1906, on the Island of Maui in Hawai'i."

Russell says Quantrill came to Hawai'i during the William Harrison administration (1889-93) and had a son who became a prominent citizen under a different name.

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-0873.