Remembering Jerry Yahiro

With deep sadness, we acknowledge the passing of Gerald ‘Jerry’ Yahiro in August of this year. Jerry was born in Waihe’e in 1940, where his father, Yoshi ‘Ralph’ Yahiro, was a dairy foreman. When Jerry was 14 his father died in a tragic fishing accident near the Waihe’e river mouth. After Jerry graduated from St. Anthony High School he studied at Seattle University and completed the ROTC program, after which he was commissioned as an infantry officer and served in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968. After returning to the Unites States Jerry lived and worked in Southern California for Pacific Telephone/Pacific Bell, before retiring in the San Francisco Bay area. 

I first met Jerry in 2009 when, after making a trip home to Maui, he visited the old Waihe’e Dairy site and met me near the old dairy manager’s home. Jerry was a wealth of information, and shared many, many stories of life on the dairy in the 1950s. In 2016, with his younger brother Mike, Jerry sponsored the design and installation of a memorial to both their parents, as well as all the dairy workers, from its opening in 1919 until its closing in 1970. 

Jerry will be deeply missed as one who held so much aloha for Waiheʻe and who worked to see the memory of those who contributed to the life of the land forever memorialized. Jerry is survived by his long-time partner, Patti, his brother Mike and sister-in-law Annadelle. Mahalo Jerry; a hui hou!

— Scott Fisher