Vaita'i Tanoa'i Tuala Reed, 91, who was born in Mapusaga, American Samoa, moved with her family to Laie as a little girl. "I came in 1925 on a banana boat called the Ventura. It took seven days to come to get here from Samoa," she said.

Reed recalled her family stayed with her father's half-brother, Osovale Maiava. "When I came there were only a few Samoan families: The Maiavas, the Su'a, the Uales and Fonoimoana. There were no more Tongans or Tahitians, no more Fijians. There were not too many people, and the missionaries. I lived in Laie all of my life, and only recently moved to Hauula," she said.

"I went to Laie School, only as far as the third grade. The missionaries taught the school. Sometimes we go fishing with my mother. For fun, we had basketball and volleyball. I'm a basketball and baseball player. I liked football, and I liked to go to the beach to go swimming."

"One day all the Mormons on the island competed. We all went to Palama Settlement, and I was the Laie swimmer. You know, Laie won. I think I was 14 years old," she said. "I didn't go to win, but I was more afraid my father give me lickin' [punishment]."

"One time my father going lick me," Reed continued, recalling she had accidentally killed a family rooster. "I kneeled down and prayed. He stopped licking me. He told me not to pray again when he going lick me. When he was going to lick me again, I prayed again. From then on whenever he was going to lick me, I always kneeled down and prayed. He no lick me."

"We were very poor, so I had to quit school, and I had to go and work at Kahuku Plantation. I pulled the dried leaves around the cane. I think I got 10 cents an hour." 

"I was among the first knife dancers," said Reed, who recalled dancing for U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he visited the Latter-day Saint Temple in Laie in 1942. "I danced the knife when I was 16 years old. My father, Tautua Tanoa'i, taught me. He was a humble man who worked for the temple."

Aunty Vaita'i shows a picture of herself as a Samoan
knife dancer, age 16, when she performed for U.S.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt

"I also danced for David O. McKay. The first Samoan dancing group in Hawaii was my group, called the Hurricanes. I had five girls and five boys. We danced at the Royal Hawaiian and Moana hotels; on the Navy ships, and for the Army at Schofield."

"That's where I met my husband, Sgt. Leo Reed. I was only 16 or 17 years old. We bought a home in Laie from President [Edward L.] Clissold for only $2,000. We had four sons and one daughter," she said, adding she worked as a telephone operator for the phone exchange in Laie. "One of my girlfriends, Hannah Haili, got sick. She told me to come over there."

Reed remembered in her spare time she liked to plant flowers in her yard. "When my children were young, we'd go up the mountain and get fern. When they [the community] had Laie Day, they had a prize. My yard was the best."

"I'm glad I came to Hawaii all those years ago," Reed said. "I have plenty grandchildren and great-grandchildren."

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