Harold P. Luscomb was born April 27, 1926 in Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh. His Hilo-bom father, Harold P. Luscomb, Sr., had moved to Pennsylvania to work for Westinghouse Electric Company and to work toward a degree in electrical engineering. There he met his wife, Helen Jones Luscomb. Harold Jr., the couple's only child, was raised at the home of his maternal grandparents in Pittsburgh. At the age of ten, Harold, his father, and mother moved to Hilo, where his father was employed by Hilo Electric Light Company.

Robert "Steamy" Chow, a retired Hilo police officer, was born March 19, 1922. He is the flfth of seven children born to Keong Chow, an immigrant from Canton, China, and Honolulu-born Violet K.F. Fong Chow. Chow spent much of his boyhood selling newspapers and shining shoes on street comers in downtown Hilo, and helping in his father's shoe repair business.

Masuo Kino was born April 2, 1929 in Kahuku Mauka (near N"mole), Hawai'i. His father, Kenkin Kino, was a laborer and independent sugarcane grower for Hakalau Plantation Company. His mother, Makato Inamine Kino, was a housewife who raised five children of which Masuo was the youngest. Kenkin and Makato Kino were immigrants from Okinawa. Masuo helped his father and mother in the sugarcane fields.

Laura Yuen Chock, the fourth of six children, was born July 18, 1927 in Hilo. Her father was Mun Hon Yuen, an immigrant from Canton, China. Her mother was Fannie Yen Tai Loo Yuen, a Honolulu- born Chinese American. Chock's parents owned the Hawaii Chicken Store, a poultry and herb business located on Mamo Street in downtown Hilo. Chock and her family lived in two-bedroom quarters above the store.

The oldest of two children born to Willard Hogle Branch and Elizabeth Mason Branch, Jeanne Branch Johnston was born in Hilo on December 2, 1939. Johnston's maternal grandfather, Charles William Mason, was the inventor of Canec, a fiberboard made from sugarcane bagasse. Mason became the superintendent of Hawaiian Cane Products Company, Ltd., located in Hilo near the site of the Waiakea Mill Company. After spending her early childhood in Hilo, Honolulu, Midway Island, and California, Johnston and her mother returned to Hilo in 1944.

Catherine Diama Campainha was born to Visayan immigrants, Catalina Buscas Diama and Agapito Diama, in Hilo, Hawai'i on March 28, 1938. She has five brothers and four sisters. Her father owned and operated Mamo Pool Hall, a billiard parlor located below their living quarters, and rented out rooms to bachelors in a boardinghouse. Her mother leased and ran the Ideal Meat Market until the mid-1940s. The Diama home on Mamo Street was a gathering place.

Violet Okino Hirata was born September 29, 1925 in Hilo. She was the third of seven children born to Yoshio Okino and Masako Kayano Okino, who owned and operated Okino Hotel on 482 Kamehameha Avenue. The hotel was started in 1913 by Yoshio's father, Yoshimatsu Okino, an immigrant from Japan. Violet Hirata grew up in family quarters in one section of the hotel. Along with her two older sisters, she helped her parents in the hotel dining rooin, serving food to customers and clearing tables. She also helped take care of her four younger brothers.

Kapua Wall Heuer was born February 1, 1912 in Kainaliu, Kona, Hawai'i. She was the youngest child of Allen Wall and Christina Lilinoe Roy Wall. Heuer's maternal grandparents were William F. Roy, a Scotsman who arrived in Hawai'i in 1860, and Eliza Davis Roy, a native Hawaiian. Together, they took up ranching in Kona. Growing up in Waihou, an area mauka of Kainaliu town, Heuer lived the ranching lifestyle. She rode horses, and learned to rope, herd, and ship cattle. Beginning in 1918, Heuer spent most of her time in Honolulu attending Punahou School.

The third of six children, Richard Furtado, was born in Lahaina, Maui on July 15, 1913 to Lucy Napelakaukau Furtado and Antonio D. Furtado. His mother was Hawaiian-Chinese; his father, a Portuguese immigrant who arrived in the islands at the age of four. His paternal grandparents from the Azores worked in the sugar industry. Later, his grandfather and father were in the meat business. The Furtados at one time owned the only meat market and slaughterhouse in Lahaina; they made and marketed Portuguese sausages throughout the territory.

Lenore Kumulani Van Gieson was born June 16, 1935 in Hilo, Hawai'i. Her father, Ebenezer Coit Hobron Van Gieson, was from a Honolulu family and educated at Kamehameha Schools; her mother, Victoria Kumulani Todd Van Gieson, a Hilo native. The oldest of four siblings, VanGieson grew up on property owned by her mother's side of the family in the Keaukaha section of Hilo. This section, known as Pu'umaile by old-timers, was an area where many of Hilo's elite resided full-time or part-time in beachfront homes and cottages.