‘Lady of love’ kept family’s hearts full

Although Julia Rezentes’ descendants at last count numbered 146, she made them all feel special.

"My grandmother was such a lady of love," said granddaughter Renee Kuhau, 45. "She reached out to every single one of us. She was there for every special event in my life — graduation, even college on the mainland, birthdays, my son’s birthday. … She made you feel special."

The 91-year-old Palolo woman and her companion of 25 years, Bobby Souza, died inside their Lai Road home after an early morning fire Monday ravaged the wooden house, which held so many memories for family members.

Rezentes had eight children, 34 grandchildren, 73 great-grandchildren and 31 great-great-grandchildren, many of whom lived with her at one time or another, Kuhau said. Her door was always open to her family members. "You could do no wrong," she said. "Grandma would accept you no matter what you did."

"I could see the fire from my bedroom," said Rezentes’ sister, Violet Staszkow, 83, who lives a few houses down the street.

"I looked out the window. I saw flames. I thought it was that house," she said, pointing to a smaller house being renovated.

FIREFIGHTERS were still investigating the cause of the fire at 2546 Lai Road.

The fire was reported at 6:24 a.m. Monday near the intersection with 10th Avenue, and flames had engulfed the three-bedroom wooden home by the time firefighters arrived. The fire was brought under control about a half-hour later.

"We were so used to calling each other, ‘Come have breakfast. Come have coffee,’" said Staszkow as her eyes filled with tears.

Staszkow, who bought the family home, said she and her 20 siblings grew up on Lai Road, and at one time as adults, there were three or four sisters living on the street.

Staszkow looked at the blackened shell of a house and said the family doesn’t know what happened, but guesses Rezentes was probably in the kitchen and "ran in to save Bobby, and everything exploded."

Souza had a stroke a couple of years ago, and Rezentes had been caring for him, she said.

Kuhau said Souza "was the love of her life for 25 years," adding, "He loved her, too."

In February 1945, Rezentes’ first home on the same Lai Road property burned down, said daughter Josephine Yamanaka, 73, the eldest of her eight children.

"I carried my sister Minnie out," recalled Yamanaka, who was about 8 years old at the time. "She was just a baby."

"The candle caught the curtain but we all got out," she said of the first fire. "This time it takes somebody."

"But we have a lot of happy, good memories," Yamanaka said. "She’ll never die."

She said her father rebuilt the house, but on a different location on the property.

Yamanaka, who lives a few blocks away, would take her mother out twice a week to run errands, go grocery shopping, take her to have her hair and nails done.

She said yesterday they hadn’t yet told her 6-year-old grandson, whom she baby-sits weekdays, what happened to his great-grandmother, whom he calls "Big Grandma," though she stood less than 5 feet tall.