The middle of three children born to Randolph Ahuna, Sr. and Adeline .Kame'ekua Ahuna, Eloise Ahuna Pung was born in Kukuiopa'e, South Kona, Hawai'i on December 16, 1933. Her paternal grandfather, Loo Ahuna, had a farm where he grew coffee and raised poultry and livestock. He also ran a charcoal-making business. As a child, Pung helped on the farm, doing various chores such as feeding the chickens, caring for the cattle and horses, cooking swill for the pigs and feeding them, pulling taro, and picking coffee. She attended 'Ala'e and Holualoa schools until the start of World War II. Her father was employed by the U.S. Engineering Department and moved the family to Hilo when Pung was a third-grader. After a few years living in rented homes, the family in 1945 was able to secure a lot and build a house on Hawaiian Home Lands in Keaukaha. She attended Hilo Union School, Waiakea Kai School and Hilo High School, graduating in 1952. After graduation, Pung attended Hawai'i Community College and later worked as a waitress at Paramount Grill and as a clerk at National Dollar Store. She worked at the Naniloa Hotel for seven years. In 1955, Pung worked for Hilo Iron Works. Since 1968, Pung has been employed at Industrial Steel Corporation. The oral history interview took place in Pung's home in Keaukaha, where she still lives with Albert Pung, whom she married in 1953. The couple raised two children and have two grandchildren.

Scope and Content Note
A woman recalls her family's farming lifestyle in Kona, where crops were exchanged for staples. She tells of moving to the town of Hilo, where her father built on Hawaiian Home Lands in Keaukaha. A witness to the 1946 tidal wave, she shares the experiences of her and her family. She also covers the effects of the 1960 tidal wave on her employer, Hilo Iron Works.

Program Note:  
This interview is part of the Center for Oral History's project Tsunamis Remembered: Oral Histories of Survivors and Observers in Hawai‘i. Interviews from this project are available in the Center's ScholarSpace open access repository.

The Center for Oral History (COH), in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, collects, documents, preserves and highlights the recollections of Native Hawaiians and the multi-ethnic people of Hawaiʻi. It produces oral histories and interpretive historical materials about lifeways, key historic events, social movements and Hawaiʻi’s role in the globalizing world, for the widest possible use.