Half Norwegian, Half Hawaiian

By her looks one cannot tell that Agnes had a Hawaiian mother. Her features look more Norwegian. The same goes for her 4 brothers and 3 sisters, except one brother who has his mother’s Polynesian looks.

Agnes Thronas was born on the island of Kauai. Her grandfather Elias Nilsen Troneas came on the Musca in 1881, and with him his wife Anna, nee Olsen, and 2 children, Anna 4 years and Elida Theodora 2 years old.

The ship’s manifest shows that Elias came from Trones in Hardanger while his wife came from Kongsberg. Their 2 children were born in Christiania (now Oslo).

Those who arrived on the ship Musca had signed contracts to work on the sugar plantations, but some fled and many went to the Mainland USA. According to Agnes her grandfather managed to get to Kauai upon arrival and brought his wife and children along. 
The Thronas family settled on Kauai and Agnes’ father Olaf was born there. He married Irene, a Hawaiian.

Agnes feels that her mother’s family was proud of having Irene marry a Norwegian.

“Both my mother and father were tall people. It was rather unusual for Hawaiians to be tall like my mother,” Agnes told us when we visited her in the apartment she has on the island of Oahu. Now she has moved to Kauai.




Agnes’ father was a butcher by profession and her mother the homemaker.

How would you describe your mother and father?

“Father was of the quiet type. I had a close relationship with him, could almost read his mind. I often thought he would do ‘such and such’ and right enough he did,” Agnes declares.

She remembers well how her mother sang and played the ukulele, the 4-stringed instrument very typical for Hawaiians, even though it originally came to the islands from Portugal in the 1800’s.

“She sang different kinds of songs such as love songs, sad songs, and religious songs. And she would often put the name of the one she was singing for into the text.”

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“Aloha from Forgotten Norwegians in Hawaii”