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An anonymous reader asked me a curious question recently. He heard that the general manager of Sears in 1959 would not agree to move from its Beretania Street location to the new Ala Moana Center unless it could bring a vendor everyone called “the peanut lady” with it. Was it true? he wanted to know.
I looked into it and found that he is correct, and there are some interesting aspects to this almost Disney-like story.
Sears, Roebuck and Co. came to Hawaii in 1939 with a small catalog store at Kapiolani Boulevard and Piikoi Street.
In 1941 it built a bigger store on Beretania Street just Ewa of Kalakaua Avenue. Guy Rothwell, who worked on City Hall, was the architect. The 50,000-square-foot building followed Sears’ guideline that there be no windows to see in or out of, only display windows.
The floor was ohia wood with 6,000 square feet of “sunset pink” Georgia granite trim. Bronze doors swung both ways.
Escalators
Patrons loved the new store, and to accommodate the increasing demand, Sears added two more floors to the building in 1947. The feature most locals came to see — and ride, over and over again — was Hawaii’s first two-way escalator.
The store had to post signs requiring shoes or slippers be worn on the escalator.
Ten years later, in 1951, Morley Theaker was appointed general manager of the store. At the time, a little old lady named Teru Isomura sold boiled peanuts on the Young Street sidewalk near the store.
On a humid day in August, it began to rain, and Theaker invited Isomura to bring her peanuts in out of the deluge, under Sears’ big marquee.
“Why don’t you sell them on this side of the street under our awning?” he asked.
“The big boss won’t let me,” Isomura answered.
“Well, you come on over anyway and I’ll talk to him,” Theaker said. He had been promoted to store manager just 10 days earlier.
“She did, and from that moment on became known as ‘Mama Sears,’” Robert Miller wrote in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. “It was only then that Theaker learned that Mama’s husband, Gisaku, was a veteran drawing a meager $80-a-month disability pension. Since he was constantly in and out of the hospital, he couldn’t work.
“The years went by, and by also working at night selling her peanuts at sporting events, Mama raised her family and bought the family’s 1931 Beretania Street home in McCully.”
Ala Moana Center
Meanwhile, the Dillingham family was moving forward with its plan to build a grand shopping center in the Ala Moana area.
The family needed an anchor tenant, a big store, to entice customers and stores away from what had been Honolulu’s traditional shopping district — downtown — and convince them to come to what had been a swamp just 40 years earlier.
I always assumed they thought of Sears first. I was wrong. Sears was an afterthought when several other large chains declined.
Donald Graham Jr., vice president of Hawaiian Land Co., recounted the lengthy history of the project in a talk to the Rotary Club of Honolulu in 1958.
“No project of this magnitude can be launched without a very major store as the initial merchant,” Graham said. Lenders would be reticent to put up the money without that.
Marshall Field
“We started with Liberty House. We then negotiated with Allied Stores (now owned by Macy’s), the second-largest department store chain in the country, for about a year without closing a lease.”
Liberty House would finally anchor Phase 2 of the shopping center seven years later in 1966.
Macy’s and May Co. were also interested but could not conclude a deal.
“Next, we spent more than a year negotiating with Marshall Field and very nearly closed a lease. Their president came to Hawaii from Chicago prepared to sign, but negotiations fell apart on the last day. That one hurt!”
Move Sears?
“Then a brilliant idea was proposed: Why not move Sears? The idea at first appeared fantastic, and it was far from easy to achieve,” Graham said.
“GM Morley Theaker was enthusiastic, but Sears people on the mainland could not see why they should spend $1 million to move a very successful store three blocks when there were many communities in the country where, for the same money, they could open a new store where they had no representation at all.
“The Sears negotiations were very trying, but finally persuasions prevailed, but not until we had agreed to buy the old Sears store.”
Sears demanded that it not be sold to another retailer. It was sold to the city for its police force and other city services.
No vendors allowed
Negotiations between Sears and Ala Moana Center’s developer, Hawaiian Land, came down to one final point. Theaker insisted the peanut vendor come along with the move. Ala Moana said no.
Robert Miller wrote, “It may be ‘small peanuts,’ but a chunky hard-working Honolulu woman threw quite a monkey wrench in the machinery of the new Ala Moana Center with just that — a small peanut.
“For the past eight years she has worked an average of 11 hours a day, six days a week, did her housework on the side, and seldom spent money for ‘foolish things like movies.’
“Then came the recent Sears move to the Ala Moana Center. Mama appeared before Theaker’s desk: ‘Which door do you want me to use for my stand at the new store,’ she said.
“This was a problem. The Ala Moana people said ‘no sidewalk vendors.’ It was part of the lease.” Theaker put it all on the line.
“If Mama can’t sell her peanuts, Sears stays where it is.”
Hawaiian Land finally agreed to make her the lone exception to its “no peddlers allowed” rule for the giant shopping center.
And that’s how Isomura became the only sidewalk vendor allowed at the new Ala Moana Center. She set up her stall at the Piikoi entrance of the new store, taking care of “her boys and girls,” as she called her customers.
I don’t know why Marshall Field came so close to being the anchor tenant before negotiations broke down, but I doubt it was over something as small as a peanut!
Isomura died in 1968 at age 64. She left seven sons, two daughters, 21 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren.
Readers have asked me about other peanut vendors at the old Honolulu Stadium. They were Bob and Mildred Nako, and not connected to the Sears vendor.
Theaker retired from Sears in 1965. Under his stewardship, Sears’ sales quadrupled. He was a pioneer in expanding employee benefits and multiracial hiring. He died in 1991 at age 86.
Kat Koshi said, “I have such aloha for that Mr. Theaker. My mom worked in the menswear section of the Ala Moana store and left each night when it closed for the day.
“I remember waiting with my dad to pick her up. Every day, without fail, Mr. Theaker was at the door to say goodbye to each worker, thanking them for a good day’s work. Every day.
“I couldn’t believe my mom when she told me he was the big boss of the store. With a warm smile and equally warm tone of voice.
“No wonder he enjoyed such loyalty from his workers. Everyone I knew did work hard, and they were grateful to have that labor recognized.”
Have a question or suggestion? Contact Bob Sigall, author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books, at Sigall@Yahoo.com.
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