By Craig T. Kojima, Star-Bulletin

ELAINE FAUMUINA:
“There are times that I set aside to weep.
You may not see it.”

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From tragic fire’s
ashes, aloha rises

Elaine Faumuina
remembers her family and thanks
the community for its aloha

By Linda Aragon
Star-Bulletin

Last Saturday, Elaine and Ulutunu Faumuina noticed women at a birthday party wearing large gold Hawaiian bracelets.

Ulutunu turned to her and said: "I have a gold bracelet for you because you're around my heart. I've been giving it to you all these years."

Faumuina reassured him by saying, "I already know."

Kalani Faumuina knew his parents worked hard to make ends meet, so he didn't ask for much. Elaine Faumuina would give him $1 or $2 for lunch, and he saved it to buy a reed for the mouthpiece of his bass clarinet and for Christmas presents.

Elaine Faumuina alternated between tears and laughter in an interview yesterday at Kaiser Hospital in Moanalua, recalling stories of seven family members who died in a fire Wednesday morning that destroyed their Palolo home.

The Faumuina family members died in an early morning fire at their home at 1816 G Palolo Ave. Killed were Elaine's 52-year-old

husband, Ulutunu, their son, Kalani, 12, and daughter, Ramona Asuao, 22, Ramona's husband, Tupu Asuao, 31, the Asuaos' son A.J., 5, and twin daughters Aotoa and Lele, 4.

A day after the fire, Faumuina said she wants to speak to the children at Jarrett Intermediate and Palolo School to thank them for remembering A.J., Kalani and the twins, and to ease their pain.

She said she wants to leave a gift at Jarrett Intermediate in memory of Kalani. "During Christmas time he would save the money he would collect from lunch and he went out and bought all our family gifts," Faumuina said.

"And then I'm going to Jarrett Intermediate and Palolo Elementary School to personally talk to the children," she said.

She said she wanted to tell Kalani's classmates at Jarrett Intermediate that, "Kalani is in good hands and he is in a special place," she said.

By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
A niece, Tailoto Amituanai, contemplates the loss
of life in a fire at this Palolo home.

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"When people come to joke with me, they build my spirits up," she said as a stream of relatives, church members and family filled her hospital room.

"The thought of how it went, it was too much," she said. "Believe me, I wish I had went in there," she said.

"It is more than any human can take," she said. "There are times that I set aside to weep. You may not see it."

Faumuina and her 16-year-old son Ulutunu Jr. were the only survivors of the Palolo fire.

Faumuina's daughter, Lagi Poston flew in from Guam yesterday with her husband, Joseph Poston. Faumuina said her youngest daughter, Jane, 18, will arrive from California soon. Her oldest son, Don, 26, may also fly in from the mainland where he is doing missionary work for the Mormon Church.

Ramona and Tupu Asuao have a son, Justin, 6, who lives in Western Samoa with Tupu's parents.

"They haven't told him yet," Faumuina said.

The funeral for the seven who died is set for Nov. 1.

Faumuina was released from the hospital yesterday with bandages wrapped around her feet.

Her family took her to her nephew and niece's home in Palolo, only a few blocks from where her home burned.

First Hawaiian Bank is collecting donations for the Faumuina family to pay for funeral costs, travel expenses and home items and clothing for Elaine and Ulutunu Faumuina Jr.

She said the aloha has overwhelmed her.

"The phone has been ringing off the hook. I've been getting support from the community, from the hotels, and people who don't even know us," she said.

Ulutunu's niece Tailoto Amituanai sat in the hospital room looking at photos of her uncle. "He was the best," she said. "He can dance."

At the parties and family gatherings, "He never gets any rest, all the women pull him up" to dance, Amituanai said.

The 6-foot, 2-inch Ulutunu Faumuina was known as "the chief" where he worked as a chef at the Waikiki Beach Hotel and the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani Hotel, Faumuina said. She said he was called that partly because of his size, and because of the respect he received.

All of Asuao's family is in Western Samoa and New Zealand.

Tupu Asuao's sister Nua Asuao said she is making arrangements to try to get them here for the funeral.

After 27 years of marriage, Elaine Faumuina said the love for her husband was still as strong as their teen-age days.

"I would never ask for another husband. Nobody can replace him," she said.