Nona Beamer

How to offer insights into our time spent with Auntie Nona? Without her, HPS would not exist, and none of the work with other kūpuna (elders) would have happened! Auntie Nona was a fearless Hawaiian woman who faced many challenges in her life but persevered and continued to embody aloha through it all. She was loved the world over by those fortunate enough to meet and get to know her, take a workshop, see her perform, become her student, listen to her CDs, or read her books. Her primary mentor was her beloved grandmother, Helen Desha Beamer (a.k.a. “Sweetheart Grandma”), and she was proud to be the eldest of 13 grandchildren. Auntie Nona was the ultimate teacher who loved and appreciated the earnestness which people of all backgrounds had for learning about things Hawaiian, but her greatest passion was in teaching children. Auntie was 77 at the time of HPS’s founding, and in those final years, she dedicated most of her time and efforts to ensuring critical native knowledge was captured and passed on through HPS. Her collection of papers, photographs, books, implements, textiles, and audiovisual materials now live in the HPS Archive.