50 years ago, we changed islands, moving from Long Island, New York to Oahu Island, Hawaii.  To celebrate the anniversary of this transformative event, I’ll be posting some articles about our lives then.  Here is the first on Fashions for Peace, my mother’s pageants to foster international understanding, including videos of her shows in Hawaii.

My mother, Lola Stone, was a life-long advocate of world peace and international understanding.  She traveled with Long Island friends in 1958 to the border of the Soviet Union in a mission to end the cold war.  She was a pen pal with a Russian woman for decades.  We had international exchange students live with us, and we often visited UN Headquarters in New York City.  She would frequently write letters to the editor of major newspapers, and once even spoke to Eleanor Roosevelt about women and world peace. Continue reading →