A Hawaiian Romance

At some point during her Hawaiian adventures, Ursula met a young man named Samuel B. Riddick. I don’t know how they met, but I like to think it was at the Buick car dealership, where he worked as a salesman. It’s possible that Ursula’s friend Elizabeth bought her Buick sedan or had it serviced there, and perhaps Ursula accompanied her, catching Samuel’s eye.

Buick salesmen Honolulu 1928

Samuel B. Riddick worked for a time in his early twenties as a Buick salesman

And why wouldn’t she? She was a beautiful, stylish, vivacious and confident young woman of independent means who was intelligent and well traveled – from Europe to the Grand Canyon. A couple of future news articles (to be revealed in a later post) would mention that they had met and had a romance in Hawaii around this time. Continue Reading →

Hanging Out in Waikiki

Waikiki Beach in 1928

Waikiki Beach in 1928

Why did Ursula go to Hawaii? Unlike with her travels in Europe, I don’t have her own words to tell us her reasons, what her experiences were like or what she thought of the U.S. territory. There are only a few concrete details of her time in Hawaii; the rest must be left to our imaginations, based on her own life history and the events, music and culture of the day. Continue Reading →

Welcome to Hawaii!

And now, back to Ursula in Hawaii. If you haven’t read the first couple of Hawaiian posts recently (or at all), you might want to do so now: Hawaii-Bound and Ursula’s Hawaiian Adventure.

Previously on Mystery Dancer: In January 1928, Ursula and her good friend Elizabeth Everhardy sailed together for six days aboard a luxury cruise-liner from Los Angeles, California to Honolulu, Hawaii. On the 20th of January, they and their fellow passengers stepped ashore on the Central Pacific Island of Oahu to a festive welcome: outrigger canoes and coin divers circling their ship, a throng of greeters festooning them with leis, and women dancing the hula to live Hawaiian music.

1928 Painting of Waikiki Beach

A 1928 painting of Waikiki Beach (with the Diamond Head volcanic crater in the distance) by D.H. Howard Hitchcock

Elizabeth had visited Hawaii four years earlier with her mother, but this was the first time Continue Reading →