Walter Francis Dillingham was proud of being a karnaaina (oldtimer) and he loved Hawaii's traditions. He seldom appeared without an orchid in his lapel, and he was pleased that the women of his family learned to do the hula. Yet, for all his fondness for the old ways, Dillingham probably did more to mold a modern Hawaii than any other man. And when he died last week at 88, the islands mourned the loss of "Uncle Walter," who in a sense had been patriarch to a whole state.
The first Dillingham in the islands was Walter's father—Benjamin Franklin Dillingham, first...
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