Alice Janssen McMurry (born Alice Sophie Christine Janssen) talks about her early life:
I was born December 28, 1900 in Koloa, Kauai. I was the Tomboy and rascal in the family and did many crazy things. At the age of 5 I had an air gun and sat on the steps outside our kitchen and when my Mother's favorite rooster went by I amed at him and got him right through the head. Of course, I was scolded and most likely spanked, but the family had a great chicken dinner.
I was always outdoors having a good time. I had my chores and did them as fast as I could so I could go outside and play. I loved to sit on the stone wall in front of the house and watch the oxen being driven to the sugar with their wagons of cane.
We moved to Kahuku when I was almost 7. I went to school there until I finished the 7th grade. Frieda, Walter and their two children were moving to Honolulu so I went with them for 5 years until I finished Territorial Normal School in 1919 and went back to Kahuku to teach.
Then Papa and Mama, Pauline, Fred, and Margaret went to Waimanalo. I went too and taught one year there, then I roamed around teaching in different plaes. I took myself on a boat one summer and went to Fiji, Samoa, Australia, and New Zealand. Then in Waipahu, I met Mac. another teacher and I took ourselves on a boat trip to Japan, China, and Singapore and then returned. In 1931, I came to the Mainland and Mac and I were married. We returned to Hawaii and later to the Mainland. We both retired in 1962.
NOTE: Alice taught in Hawaii for 33 years and in Oregon for 9 years. Raymond McMurry was Housing Superintendent in Olaa, Hawaii. When they moved to Myrtle Creek he became a farmer. They retired to Santa Rosa, California. Mac preceded Alice in death. She died in the 1990s.
