Honolulu Advertiser for Archives

November 30, 2007

Long time insurance agent, Jim Smith, donated 18 hardcover bound volumes of the Honolulu Advertiser from December 1, 1941 through December 31, 1945, as well as the paper’s 1959 special edition on Hawaii’s statehood to our Nisei Veterans Archives.

Jim Smith and his wife Linda look through one of the hardcover bound volumes of the Honolulu Advertiser.

Smith’s family moved to Hawaii in the 1860s.  Hours after the bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, his father, an electrical salesman, ran down to help.  He left the house wearing a blue shirt.  During the day, rumors flew that Japanese paratroopers were wearing blue shirts, so that evening when the elder Smith came home, he was shirtless.

“It was an incredible time, and rumors ran wild that day,” recalled Smith. “My dad knew we were living through an extraordinary time, and so he began his collection. He kept the front/back page or the whole first section of every day during those years.  I’ve been lugging those books around with me my whole adult life, and from time to time thought about selling them or donating them.  When my wife and I saw the article in the Maui News about your Education Building, we knew we had finally found the right home for my father’s collection.”