Rick Hartman & Emma Patao of Lahaina

This recording is part of Hui Mo‘olelo: Lahaina, our 2025–2026 gathering of talk-story recordings created to inform future public artwork, support collective healing, and provide trusted, community-informed guidance for the Lahaina Memorial Project. 

Here, Lahaina Intermediate School student Emma Patao sits with her grandfather, Rick Hartman, who reflects on his upbringing in Lahaina, emphasizing how the sensory memories of plantation life and the industrial scents of the sugar mill defined his sense of home. He describes a tight-knit community structured around iconic local landmarks such as Mala Wharf, family-run businesses like his father’s laundromat, and the Lahaina Yacht Club. Hartman highlights the spirit of aloha through the hospitality of neighboring families who welcomed him into their lives, illustrating a time when the town’s small population fostered deep personal recognition among all residents. Emma's talk-story documents a disappearing era of intimacy and connection that existed before the town’s modern expansion and devastating 2023 fires.