Lena’s dream of a family estate at Olo took shape as her children came and went over the years. All of her children but James built homes in American Samoa. Frances built at Malaloa, not Olo, although she now has the “Coke House” there. After Lena put the land in Trust in 1960, her children allocated it to themselves in individual parcels in 1969. It was never equally allocated, (historical acreage summary) and it appears nowhere in the record that they tried to make it so.
In 1982, in settlement, Mike quitclaimed out giving his Olo share to James, Ben, John and Margaret, but not Frances, since she already had more than twice the acres any of the others got. Thereafter, these first four of Lena’s six children traded and transferred amongst themselves to finally obtain contiguous parcels (see the Penfield Maps). Margaret was meticulous about her borders, straightening one with a neighbor Maae, and carefully outlined her acquisitions from James and Ben, renaming the extension Tagavaa (see Swords survey), removing its prior recorded name of Puapua from her map, and marking a clear boundary between herself and John’s adjacent Plot F. Margaret also, when John was away, constructed a road straight through the center of his property, up the mountain to her house, creating two parcels for John and a right of way for everyone else through his property, much to his fury and everyone else’s dismay, especially when the Tongan tenants strung their electricity overhead across the road to borrow power from John and Dotsy.
Life at Olo was not entirely peaceful, but they rarely went to court after Mike quitclaimed out in 1982, except that Frances, Margaret and Mike did initiate suits (see litigation files). Margaret was there only part time, but had a surrogate, having built a house for Leslie and her son Cody. Leslie took care of everything for her. Margaret made long term leases and enjoyed refined tenants who remain devoted caretakers to this day. John’s extended Tongan family had begun to cause serious concerns around 2000. John had died in 1992. James sold out to Margaret and Ben in 1995, delaying the completion of the the land transfer paperwork until 2002. Frances had long since gone to California after 1978, hoping to liquidate by selling her land, which no one would let her do. Ben became a permanent, full time resident, and he also enjoyed a separate entrance from the others. For many years, only Leslie and Margaret’s tenants were in residence at Olo to pay much attention; Mark came and went after 2000. In 1998, Mike began planning his return, initiating sales at Fuamete, moving Mark to Olo, starting an airline for Carrie and her then-husband Andre, envisioning a house for them, too, at Olo. Margaret was dispatched to Connecticut to secure James’ non-objection to his plan. We do not know what James said to Margaret about the return, but he immediately gave his files, and permission to access the Los Angeles lawyers’ files, to Robin, saying “You’re on your own now, Robbie.” Clearly he had had his fill.
About 2000, Carrie Sue stated her father had a plan to remove the Tongans, but viewed the problem as Robin’s issue to resolve, preferring anything other than settlement. Carrie had become in an unpublished way, the Voice of Olo, and intended to or was elected to resurrect the Olo Association to beautify and secure Olo “for the family”, and collect maintenance fees. The announcement was prefaced by a letter co-signed by Mike and Margaret endorsing the new plan. While her plan did not come to pass, within two short years, (1998-2000) unbeknownst to the rest of the family, Frances had “transferred” five of her ten acres to Mike, Douglas Jr., and Mark. Mike gave an acre each to Carrie and Kelly. By 2004, the airline failed, the daughters and Douglas, Jr. had never arrived. Only Mark had completed a house for his family, intending to remain.
Unfortunately, the rest of the family had no real details and no Trust approvals were ever sought for these transfers. A title search was finally begun in 2008 to reconstruct what had happened. There was no Trustee. There was no proper chain of title. This effort to clarify the titles and transfers was begun only after Carrie, Kelley and Douglas began sales attempts in 2006-7. The unhappy chain of events leading to the present litigation began when finally, in great frustration, they hired Roy Hall to assert their long disputed claim of clear and perfect title, which he laid out to the rest of the family in his provocative “legal” memorandum of 2012, with an introductory cover letter co-signed by Mike and Sandra, in defense of the transfers and the sales.
The long process of restoration began, culminating in the various litigations of today.