Here is another summer rerun. I first ran this post in 2016. I think you’ll enjoy having another look at it.
The Hawaiian Swim Team in Maplewood.
As a bonus, I’m including some interesting fragments found in the collection of the Maplewood Public Library.
Pictured is Ralph Kalb of Kalb Electric who also ran the swimming pool.
The bronze plaque still inside our original pool building (now the library).
If you haven’t been to the pool in awhile, well, why the heck not? It is the perfect place to be on hot days like we’ve been having. I imagine it was doubly important in the days before air conditioning was invented.
I’ve been going in the evenings when the sun is getting low behind the trees. It’s great! You don’t even need sunblock. I hope to see you there.
Doug Houser July 28, 2025
Doug – Great article! Just finished reading The Three-Year Swim Club where your article’s content is described, although not so thoroughly (page 250).
In the 1960s, Clayton Shaw Park (CSP) had a swimming coach named Alex Ikeda. At one of the summer meets at Shaw Park, a swimming team from Hawaii came to StL and Shaw Park families hosted the swimmers in their homes. The team showed up with large, beautiful orchid leis in appreciation of the home hospitality. Wondering if Coach Ikeda, and later the visiting team, had its roots in the Maplewood event.
Jenny, thank you for providing more detail to this unusual story. If you could send me an image of the reference you mention in The Three Swim Club, I’ll happily add it to my digital file.
Doug, I just finished reading The Three-Year Swim Club by Julie Checkoway. On page 250, there is reference to this swimming meet in Maplewood.
As a St Louisan, this book was exciting to read, then to search and find your article – wow! It puts more pieces of the puzzle in place. It makes me wonder if Alex Ikeda, a coach for the Clayton Shaw Park team in the 1960s, was somehow connected to the warm relationship formed between the Maui swimmers and the St Louis community years prior. I was on the swimming team and recall hosting some of the Hawaiian team at our house during a swimming meet. They arrived with beautiful leis for the host families. Thank you so much for this!
I missed the first posting, so I really enjoyed this bit of Maplewood history and glad you reposted again.
This event got me wondering if this was the only one held. I remember one in the early 60s as well as a fashion show over the pool runway.
I’m glad you liked it, Jean. I don’t have information on any events other than this one. I do have some photographs taken by Elmer Wind Jr. of some of the local girls modeling swimsuits. He told me that the merchants bought the suits and the girls got to keep them. I believe this was in the early 1940s as well. I’ll see what I can put together. Good to hear from you.