Lunching with One of Hawaii’s Real ‘Descendants’

By Julia Flynn Siler, first published in the Wall Street Journal‘s Speakeasy blog on 3/12/2012 Julia Flynn Siler and Her Royal Highness Princess Abigail Kawananakoa. A few days before heading to Honolulu on book tour for “Lost Kingdom,” I got a phone call from the assistant to Her Royal Highness Princess Abigail Kawananakoa, the woman…

Read More

The Queen’s Prayer

The last queen of Hawaii’s best known composition is Aloha Oe, which is heard in the soundtrack of everything from Elvis Presley’s “Blue Hawaii” to the Disney movie “Lilo and Stitch.” But the one that brought tears to my eyes this morning was “The Queen’s Prayer,” a hymn she wrote when she was imprisoned for eight months following a failed insurrection against the 1893 overthrow of the independent kingdom of Hawaii.

Read More