Capsun's Corner – by Capsun M. Poe

Note:  This is part of my Weekly Wednesday AQ Wisdom special series.  To see other posts in the series, click on the Best Bets tab at the top of any page here and scroll down to the “AQ McElrath” section.

Part One:  Birth to Bob McElrath

She did volunteer work for Hawaii’s struggling labor movement, using her social work training to help others and their families…

Ah Quon Leong was born on December 15, 1915.  She overcame the hardship and difficulty of growing up the second youngest of a poor, immigrant family in Hawaii.  Her father died when she was five, leaving her mother to raise the family.  Her older brother stopped going to school to help support the family.  All the children would help by collecting kiawe beans, dried bones, and scrap metal to supplement the family income.  They even made and sold charcoal to help support the family.

Despite the financial hardship Ah Quon was able to acquire an advanced education – graduating from the University of Hawaii in 1938 with a degree in sociology and anthropology and later attending the University of Michigan in social work.  But, instead of using her education for her own financial gain, she dedicated her energy, skills and knowledge to help others.

From 1938 to 1946, Ah Quon worked as a volunteer, then as a full-time social worker with the Hawaii Territorial Board of Public Welfare, where she organized an industrial association that won raises for professional and clerical workers.  She also did volunteer work for Hawaii’s struggling labor movement, using her social work training to help workers and their families during the 1938 Inlandboatmen’s Union strike and victims of the 1946 tsunami which devastated Hilo.

It was during this time that Ah Quon met and married Robert (Bob) McElrath, who was helping Jack Hall publish the Kauai Herald and organize sugar and pineapple workers.  In 1942, Bob got a job as a machinist at the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company dry-dock in Honolulu, where he organized the independent Marine Engineering and Dry Dock Workers Union of Hawaii.  Bob and his union organized workers at Hawaiian Tuna Packers, the American Can Plant, and the Hawaiian Pineapple Company (Dole cannery).  Ah Quon was actively involved in helping to organize pineapple workers.  Many of the organizing meetings with workers were held in the living room of the McElraths’ home on Elm Street in the old Sheridan Tract.

Please visit next Wednesday as I continue with AQ’s story, from 1945.

Mahalo!

Tags: aq, aq mcelrath, bob mcelrath, Hawaii, ilwu, mcelrath, union