The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-09-03
PICTURESQUE AMERICANS
THE WINNING All FONG SISTERS OF
FAR-OFF HONOLULU.
Daughters of Chinaman-Six of
Them Have Married Americans
and Seventh Is to Do So.
PHILADELPHIA Times.

mansion in the suburbs of Honolulu will
be the most notable event in point of cere-
mony and style of any similar affairs that
have taken place there. Miss Sue All Fong
will be welded TO Samuel s. HOcroft, who
had been considered one Of the foremost
matrimonial catches in Oregon for several
years. He is a Harvard University man,
an heir to large mining wealth and a trav-
eler and polished club man. After ten
years of minging in society in Europe and
much of America he has laid his heart at
the feet of lovely daughter of the trop-
icaI islands in the south seas and he snaps
his fingers at all talk about the Chinese
father of his prospective bride
No home in all the broad Pacific has been
so we'll known by American and British
naval officers and globe-trotting tourists for
longer than a dozen years as the All Fong
mansion in Honolulu. Naval officers say
that very few homes have been so hosplt-
ably open to them in their cruises as mas
been that of All Fong, the millionaire Chi
neses in the Hawaiian islands. ASK any
naval officer who has been aboard ship
that lay at anchor in the harbor OF Homo
lulu whether he remembers the All Fong
home and note the fitting of pleasant mem
cries through his brain. If he Is talKatlVe
he may tell you of the liberal and and
charming hospitality dispensed in the All
Fong mansion among the wonderful
grounds filled with trees and. shrubs from
all tropical lands and CT the thirteen All
Fong girls ranging from toddling tot to
WinSOme young WOmanhOOd. He may tell
you also of the Oriental dinners served in
the All Fong home, where covers were LAID
for fifty and more guests; OF the lovely
balls in the bamboo room: OF the many
piazzas where ladies and gentlemen were
welcome day and evening and entertained
with music and mirth that seemed TO have
no end. If he has bit of sentiment be-
meath his blue uniform, he may tell you
of the languorous ballads he heard sung at
the All Fong home, of the black-eyed, jolly
All Fong girls and their skill in dancing.
ENTERTAINED AMERICANS.
Among foreign people there have been
few more ardent admirers of Americans
than the big All Fong family. Long before
Hawaii became an American possession the
All Fongs longed for the union. When the
Americans soldiers were on their way to
the Philippines and stopped at Hawaii the
All FOng girls were always among the first
in Honolulu to entertain the boys in blue
| with feasts and public entertainment. Six
| of the sisters have married American hus-
bands and each has had happy welded
| life. Miss Janet All FOng is now engaged
! to marry a lieutenant in the United States
| army in the Philippines when his term of
service will have expired next year. -Four
| of the All Fong sisters have been educated
| at SeminarieS in San Francisco and Oak
! land, and Miss Martha All Fong (nOw wife
| of Lieutenant DOugherty, in Manila) took
| high rank at Mills Seminary as pianist and
composer.
! The All Fong children comprise thirteen
! girls and one boy. The eldest CMrs Nor
/ gan, Of New OrleanS) is about thirtyfive
| years old and the youngest Miss Anna
/ is twelve Mrs An FOnP is hand
/ some woman with olive complexion, large
/ black eyes and unusually pleasing manners,
and is of Portuguese birth. All the dauSh-
| tiers have her disposition and love music.
| and some of them have the Chinese nose
! and high cheek bones of Papa All Fong.
The mothers manners and the father S
| commercial sense is observable in every one
of the All Fong progeny.
| Miss Nellie All Fong is now in Paris
studying art. She is a Strikingly handsome
! brunette, notwithstanding she inherits her
fathers slanting eyes more than any of
her sisters. Mrs. Arthur tombstone, who
/ was Miss Helena All Fong until four years
| ago, is a demiblonde. and the combination
/ of her blue eyes and dark eyelashes and
! hair and her pink and white complexion
| beauty of the family. Several of the sisters
| have their fathers tall stature, but the
| rest are of petite figures. Three have a
pronounced suggestion of Chinese almond
] shaped eyes, and nearly every one OF them
| has the mothers complexion and soft mode
of speech No less an authority than Sir
|
spent in the All Fong home few years
ago were the most tropicauy charming"
| he ever knew in the South Seas.
A PORTUGUESE WIFE
Along about 1858 a young Chinaman
named Wing All FOng came with a ship
load of Chinese to Honolulu. He was high
ly intelligent and genial, and with a little
capital soon built up prosperous business
in Chinese crockery, silks and bric-a-brac.
He was soon the leading merchant in Hon
| olulu. He spent money freely and was
! well liked by whites and blacks in the
| quaint old town. AS he grew in wealth he
made love to the daughter, Conception, of
a poor Portuguese sailor who had foated
| into Hawaii The Chinamans money and
| his superiority to his fellow-coolies made
| him an accepted sutton. So All Fong was
married in 1862 His wife was fine looking
| and energetic for that land of languor and
| siesta All Fong invested in sugar cane
! plantations, and in the old times, when
! sugar plantations paid almost incredibly
large profits, he grew very rich In ten
years All Fong was worth over 100000, and
was adding $4,000 TO it annually. He was
careful and prudent while his business as
sOciates drowsed and took no heed of the
morrow. He was ceaselessly watching
chances to buy plantation land cheap from
the improyident Hawaiians. BY 1870 the
All Fong sugar plantation, on the island of
| Hilo, had become one Of the most produc-
tive there. While such men as Claus
SDreckelS made StOO,OVO ana SSUO,VDO annual
ly from sugar exports, All Fong made
$780, 900 and coo annually in the same way.
| Meanwhile the All FOng family circle
| widened There were four children, a boy
| and three girls-in the home by 1879. Ten
more girls were born there during the next
| twenty years. Wing All FOng was an ideal
| father. He was delighted to see how each
| child resembied the mother in facial eX-
| preston. He hired servants galore, en-
| larged his house every few years. and
| thought nothing too good for his babies
| He used to find no greater Joy than to get
| his wife and all his numerous girls in a
| great numbering open carriage like a con-
| cord coach. that he had built according to
| his own ideas and with himself as driver
| on the front seat. TO go rolling slowly over
| the roads about Honolulu for a few hours
at a time. He was passionately fond OF
| song, and mOtiOning cheerfully to his
| black-eyed girls all about he would say
| You singee allie velly fine song you know
| / give you heap money. Then away the
| family would down the road. with the
| girls singing in chorus a medley OF al
| popular songs Of the day. 1t used to be a
| memorable sight TO see bowling along any
! Of the laVa-made roads in Honolulu, Papa
/ All Fong, with his long queue dangling
down his back. driving in a carriage con
| tanning his complete family circle all sing
| ing, laughing and having a noisy good
time all by themselves.
THE SON OF HIS FATHER
True Chinaman that he was, Wing Al
Fong never gave up his idea that the Chi
nese ways of living and doing things were
a little superior 10 any others. He let the
wife run the home and dress and educate
the daughters as she saw fit The An Fone
I