Grandee, my Grandee!

Cycle Paper #5

Dolores is my grandmother but I call her Grandee because she never wanted to be “just Grandma”. She wanted to be different from all the other grandmas in the family. My grandmother combined grandma and Dee, or Dolores, and came up with “Grandee”. I think she is the only “Grandee” in Hawaii.

Dolores Resquer Costales was born on February 20, 1936 in Waipahu, behind the present Kiso store, on Waipahu Street. She has two sisters, Juliana and Josephine and three brothers, Victor, Pedro, and Ludivico. Her brother Ludivico died about 6 years ago and Pedro died about one month ago. Dolores Costales moved from Waipahu as an infant to Pokai Bay, Waianae on Oahu. At the age of three, she moved to Kilauea, Kauai. She lived there for 2 years while her father worked on the plantation.

At the outbreak of World War II on, December 7th, 1941 her family and her moved to Waipio camp in Waipahu, the present site of Waipahu High School. Then she attended August Ahrens School from first to eighth grade. My grandmother and her friends walked all the way from Waipio to August Ahrens School and back, almost two miles, every school day. They went through cane fields and across Farrington Highway. In their free time they played in the fields, ate wild tomatoes and berries, and also swam on the edges of Pearl Harbor. She has spirited memories of attending August Ahrens School.

My grandmother, Dolores worked in the pineapple cannery packing pineapples for four summers. While packing pineapples the supervisor kept yelling at them, “Pick up your pine!”, “You’re taking off too much pine!”, or they also said “You’re too slow!” My grandmother and her friends hated working in the cannery but that was the only way for young children to make money. They worked so hard that they had pineapple rash on their arms and hands, even though they wore long gloves. They looked forward to the end of the summer when they would be “laid off” and could enjoy the rest of the summer, before going back to school. Dolores had catechism after school and sang in school plays. She was the May Day Queen in eighth grade and was the Valedictorian for the eighth grade graduating class.

Dolores wanted to attend the University of Hawaii and become a school teacher. She attended Sacred Hearts during her ninth grade year. Her family then relocated to Kalihi, so she attended Farrington High School for her sophomore, junior, and senior years. During her senior year she received a nursing scholarship to go to St. Francis School of Nursing. During nursing school she lived in a dormitory and she said, “it was an unforgettable experience”.

During the first six months of school, Dolores had classes during the day and worked at the hospital in the early evening. She studied from seven to nine at night. The students had strict study hours. My grandmother and her friends were always hungry during these hours, so they snuck down to the dorm kitchen and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The sandwiches were free so they ate all they wanted, and their housemother never caught them. Dolores gained twenty pounds in six months from all the food and late night snacks.

Nursing school was very satisfying and fulfilling for Dolores. She took care of sick patients and saw them get well enough to go home. My grandmother said, “It was a definite advantage to be able to speak to their elderly patients in their own Ilocano dialect.” It made the patients more comfortable and reassured them when they were able to speak and be understood in their own language.

A nursing classmate named Lucy introduced Dolores to my grandfather, John Costales. In 1957, Dolores left nursing school and married my grandfather. They have been married for 50 years and have a mutual trust in each other. They have four children: Darlene, Bradford, Brian, and Dawn. After nine years, Dolores returned to nursing school for 15 months and graduated as Valedictorian of her nursing class. My grandmother worked as an ER nurse at St. Francis hospital for 32 years. She was indispensable to the hospital and its patients. She retired from St. Francis on February 20, 1998. My grandmother always says, “This has given me time to spend with family which I enjoy so much”.

Dolores enjoys being with her family, singing, playing tennis and traveling. She has traveled all over the world. Her favorite places in Rome are the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel, in Paris the Church of Notre Dame, and finally in China the Great Wall of China. “Seeing all these places, was so enjoyable and fun. I hope to travel to Australia in November”.

My grandmother has been through many different situations and experiences. I admire her for being faithful and loving to her family, and for being such a hard worker and achieving her goals. All of these qualities are what makes my grandmother truly “Grand”. That is why she will always be “Grandee” to me.