Photographs courtesy of Anna Tan
and Pak So of Trips of Wonder
When visiting the Big Island's South Kohala region of Waimea, be sure to leave time for a historic ranch house tour at the Anna Ranch Historic Home and Heritage Center. Anna Ranch is on the National Register of Historic Places and is located at 65-1480 Kawaihae Road.
Foreword (all text below) excerpted from Hawaii's Incredible Anna by Ruth M. Tabrah, first published in 1987 by Press Pacifica:
The is the story of Anna Lindsey Perry-Fiske, a truly remarkable woman of Hawaiian, English, and German Jewish ancestry who has lived an exciting and most unusual life in one of Hawaii's very special places - Waimea - Kohala, in the heart of the Big Island's paniolo country.
The title of her biography expresses exactly what she is - HAWAII'S INCREDIBLE ANNA. She is a tough, shrewd, hard-working cowboy and, at the same time, a strikingly beautiful, elegantly groomed great lady. To see her sitting at the captain's table on a cruise ship, dressed in a gold lame dinner gown, a white fox fur around her shoulders, a diamond tiara sparkling on the coronet of her dark hair, one would never guess that, at various times in her life, Anna has been a racing jockey, a butcher, and a truck driver. Throughout the islands of this fiftieth state, Anna's cattle-breeding expertise, and her fabulous black-tie dinner parties have both brought her renown. For hundreds of thousands of parade-goers - in Hawaii, at the Tournament of Roses in Pasadena, at the Calgary Stampede and the Lethbridge, Alberta Centennial celebration of the Royal Canandian Mounted Police, Anna will always be remembered as the Queen of the Pa'u Riders.
At an age when most women and men sit back in retirement, this incredible Anna is still a ranch owner, ranch boss, cattle buyer, business woman, and glamourous hostess. As she has been for all of her long life, Anna is a vibrant, charming and caring person who can, at the same time, be a formidable adversary when the occasion arises. She enjoys a well-deserved reputation of being a most powerful persuader when it comes to raising funds for charitable causes and she herself is a most generous benefactress. Her "Old Hawaii on Horseback", a spectacular pageant presented on the spacious front lawns of her ranch house, has long been one of the nation's most successful fund raisers for the American Heart Association.
Anna's dimunitive size and dainty, well-manicured hands are deceptive. She is a dynamo of energy - a strong, self-reliant woman who never considered being female an obstacle. With unflagging confidence and verve, Anna Perry-Fiske has made a name for herself in business and politics. She is both indomitable and assuredly feminine, surpassing most men with her stamina, gutsiness, and courage. With grit and determination, almost always on her own, she has coped with hard times, divorce, family crises, despair over a much loved hanai (adopted) child, and the everyday adversities of making a cattle ranch succeed in this highly competitive world. Her life has never been easy.
Of late years, Anna has survived injuries that would have led anyone to hang up their saddle for good - but her belief in herself, and her deep Christian faith, have sustained her. All these many facets of Anna Lindsey Perry-Fiske's strong character makes hers the story of a life of challenge and amazing resilience, of living through failure to achieve success. She has always been at the crest of the waves of change that have washed through this twentieth century and thus her biography is rich in Hawaiiana and the anecdotes that make history vivid.
Here is also a feminist story, although Anna has never thought of herself as such. Those with concern for the emergence of women enjoying equal status with men will find that in her own decisive way Anna Lindsey Perry-Fiske has set a pattern that young feminists can envy - and emulate. Not only has she pioneered in the development of Hawaii's modern ranching industry. She has earned the respect of women and men alike for her business acumen, her talent for innovation in cattle raising, range, and ranch management, and her political savvy as she has already won their admiration for her great beauty and charm.
How did all this come to be?
"It was my parents," Anna acknowledges. "My mother made me the lady that I am, and my father made me the man I am today!"
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