While the public knew Palani Vaughan for his distinctive sideburns, his scholarly dedication to Hawaiian history and his rich, resonant voice, which sounded as though echoing from an earlier time, Vaughan’s children and grandchildren remember the Hoku Award-winning singer as a devoted papa who brought his own chair to every one of his grandchildren’s volleyball games, took lei wherever he went and texted lengthy history lessons to his family by pecking out each letter on his old flip phone.

“Everyone who still has those long text messages, we’re going to cherish them forever,” daughter Hiwa Vaughan-Darval said.

A memorial service has been set for Jan. 6 at Kaumakapili Church for Vaughan, who died Dec. 8 at age 72.

In October, Vaughan had traveled to Kauai to attend the ceremony for his son’s promotion to deputy fire chief. “He was extremely proud and excited,” Kilipaki Vaughan said. It was the last time Kilipaki saw his father, though the lengthy texts and phone calls to his three grandchildren on Kauai were almost daily.

PALANI Vaughan lived in Waimanalo in the house where he grew up and later returned to care for his aging parents. Every day, he’d drive to his daughter’s house in Manoa to help with school drop-off and pickup for her four children. If his grandchildren’s schools ever needed help with an event, he always was happy to be there.

He was a bridge between the past and the future, between kupuna and keiki. His son calls him an “old soul” determined to set the lessons of his grandparents and great-grandparents as foundations for future generations.

“Every Memorial Day when we were kids, we went to clean graves and visit kupuna, all the kupuna he grew up with,” Kilipaki said. “From Laie and Kahuku to Diamond Head and Punchbowl, a full day’s journey around the island.”

Hiwa said, “We cut trees and cleared the area in cemeteries so old that people don’t even know they exist, but it was so important for him to show us the markers and tell the stories, to teach us who these people were and who we are.”

When his children were young, in the late 1970s, Vaughan played at the Kamaaina Room at the Ala Moana Hotel, doing two shows a night, five nights a week. His days were often devoted to research. His son remembers playing under the banyan tree outside the State Archives while his father spent “hours and days” combing through historical records.

“Every Sunday we would go eat hot cross buns on Maunakea Street at Kamehameha Grill,” Kilipaki said. “Afterward we would stop at Iolani Palace. At the time, you could drive around the Kamehameha Statue, so we would do that. We would pull over, look at the plaques, go to Kawaiaha‘o, visit Lunalilo’s tomb. He always made it a point to educate us about history and its importance to us.”

HIWA said, “I’m going to miss just being able to make a phone call to Dad to ask him a question about history. He really was a wealth of knowledge for so many people. And he would give you more information than you could handle.”

Kilipaki said, “We would say you had to have a third ear because my dad would talk your ear off. He was such a storyteller.”

Hiwa added, “When he got talking, he would go from subject to subject to subject with almost no end. One time, my brother and I were sitting there listening to him, and he actually got to the end of the story and it connected to what he had started with. We high-fived, like, ‘That was amazing!’” She laughed when she spoke of this fond memory, though she said she is not yet used to the idea that he is gone. She is a kumu hula, and her Halau Hula Ka Lehua Tuahine just last month held its 10-year hoike (presentation), a four-hour event that her father enjoyed seated in the center seat of the front row.

“He set a path for us. He impressed on us what our kuleana is,” Hiwa said. “He taught us that everything is possible and to put one foot in front of the other, be deliberate and thoughtful, and keep pushing forward.”

Kilipaki said, “He taught us to respect kupuna, remember the things they taught you and to carry that torch into the future.”

Vaughan is also survied by brother Gilbert “Poki‘i” Vaughan, former wife Ipolani Ah Yo Miller Vaughan, partner Sharon Asato, son Kanohea Wong and nine grandchildren: Tayla-Nohea, Tiare-Ka‘aumoana, Tanner Nakahili and Kahula Vaughan-Darval; Nahulu and Kalani Kawamoto; and Pikomanawa, Pi‘ina‘e and Anaualei Vaughan.