Customer Reviews

Born in Paradise

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This is the author's own story of growing up on a cattle ranch on the island of Maui, Hawaii about 1900. Her descriptions of the exotic landscape and culture and her obvious joy in living this type of free outdoor life made me feel that I had lived there with her. I didn't want the book to end, so I read several of the author's other books. They are also very enjoyable, but I like this one the best, because it is a true story.

This book was purchased by me on a recent trip to Maui. I bought it in a museum gift shop in Lahaina. I was instantly transported back to Paradise--Maui. This is the story of a young girl being raised on Maui in the days of paniolos(Hawaiian cowboys),horses and cattle. She invites us to share in her adventures being the eldest daughter of a cattle ranch manager.

Armine shares her trials, joys and sorrows of growing up in Maui. Encouraged by her loving father, she was taught strive to do her best and to take some risks in life.

Many of the places she writes about are places that still interest many of us now. She brings to life a Maui that is far different now.

A good book for all ages. Enjoy!

If you are a lover of all things Hawaii, know that this book is for you. Although this autobiography was written by a European after our dubious disturbance in these islands, Armine captures the feel, the smell, the magic, and the beauty of Hawaii in the early 1900s. Raised by a father with a great sense of adventure and love of his daughter and Hawaii, Armine lives a charmed existence and details it beautifully for us to escape to. If you have been to Maui, you will particularly love to read it with a map or memories in hand, to even better picture what she paints on the canvas of her book.

Armine Von Tempski grew up on the island of Maui, Hawaii. Her autobiography, 'Born in Paradise', describes in finite detail her love of the islands and the cultural traits of the Hawaiian people. Anyone who has a love of the islands, especially Maui, will enjoy the early 20th century accounts of events that took place. The infantile detail she pays attention to, enhances the beauty of the book. It makes you long for the inner peace of living such an idyllic life.

Thanks, Paul M. Goyette

My mother has a copy of this book. I read it and found out that Armine and I have alot in common. We were both born in Hawaii, she on Maui, me on Oahu, but moved to Maui when I was 2 years old. We both have alot of fond childhood memories of the islands, events and our family and friends over there. She met royalty, grew up on a 10,000 acre ranch called Haleakala (pronounced hale-a-ka-la) Ranch situated on the volcano of the same name. It is now Tedeschi Winery (they make pineapple wine!)

The book mainly tells the story of a white child growing up in paradise amongst hawaiians, portuguese, japanese, chinese, koreans, and other people of different races. She took pride in being called a "paniolo" (hawaiian for cowboy).

Excellent book for everybody!

I really enjoyed this book. It's not great literature by any means but if you are one of those who have been Shanghaied by Hawaii (as Jack London put it) then you probably will enjoy it too. A large share of the appeal is dreaming about living in Maui before the strip malls, the bumper-to-bumper traffic, the golf courses, gated communities and crowded beaches turned complete paradise into paradise with strip malls, traffic and golf courses. The book covers her life from the age of about four until the age of twenty-nine.

Armine von Tempski was fortunate to have been born into a family of means. Her father was manager of the 34,000 acre Haleakala Ranch and her mother was the daughter of the British minister to Hawaii (James Wodehouse). They seemed to know everyone who was anyone. A source of pride for Armine was that one of her father's best friends was Lorrin Thurston, an important figure in Hawaiian history indeed but the chief architect of the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy so, as much as Armine admired him, he is considered a villain by many today. She does not mention that Thurston was 1/3 owner of the ranch. Armine does not involve herself in politics in this book and she obviously loved the Hawaiian people, especially the paniolos who worked on her father's ranch, and she respected their beliefs and customs. But she was also a product of her times.

It's a bit late to do anything about it but it is unusual for an autobiography to rarely give the author's age or the dates when events occurred. Born in Paradise was published in 1940 so the events she described were her memory of them some thirty to forty years later. Perhaps this is why some of the time lines seem confused. For example, Von Tempski recounts a trip to Haleakala with her father when she discovers what turned out to be Hawaiian burial sites inside some of the cones and she describes this as though she were perhaps a teenager at the time. In fact, a paper by the anthropologist, Kenneth Emory, gives the date that he received information from Armine as being 1920, when her father was no longer manager of the ranch (and couldn't ride) and she would have been 28 years old (could Emory's date be wrong?). She also says that her father took her mother to the ranch when they were married but they were married in 1891 and he did not manage Haleakala Ranch until 1898 or 1899 by most accounts. Likewise, she tells of many incidents on the ranch when she was four or five but it would not have been on the Haleakala ranch but perhaps the ranch her father bought in Makawao with his brother (Erehwon cattle station). It's very confusing because she goes into such detail of the ranch and its workers from that period, however, can find no references that indicate that her father was manager of the ranch before 1898. Maybe she never thought that a hundred years later anyone would care if the stories were chronologically correct.

For anyone interested in examining primary and secondary sources for dates as I did, go to the Library of Congress web site called Chronicling America where you can do keyword searches of Hawaiian newpapers from 1860-1922. There are hundreds of entries for Louis von Tempski and events mentioned in the book. For example, you can see that the Wirth's Circus was in Maui in January of 1896 when Armine would have been 4 years old. Other on-line sources are Men of Hawaii, edited by Sidall (short bio on Louis), Makawao cemetery records, Our Hawaii, a book by Chairmain London (who became good friends with Armine) about her and her husband's (Jack London) 1907 visit to Hawaii with a long section on their visit with the von Tempskis (available for free from Amazon), a scathing 1916 letter from Jack London to Armine saying that of the thousands of amateur manuscripts he had read hers was the sloppiest one he had ever seen and (even though he still loved her) she should be embarrassed for sending him such rubbish.

Needless to say, I would not have spent as much time as I did scouring the internet for additional information if I did not become interested in this family. Through Armine's stories, I felt as though I knew them.

It took a long time for this book to get here but it finally arrived and my husband is reading it and loves it. I will read it when he is finished.

I enjoyed Armine Von Tempski's story of her childhood at Haleakala Ranch on Maui. She wisked me away to a bygone era of Hawaii's history. Armine is a bit vague as to dates, but it seems that the story is set mostly before 1910.