James Barclay Obituary

I first met James in 1956-57 or so, when his mother Rosalie and brother Charles, along with my grandparents Joe and Helen Moniz, came over from Maui to visit the brothers Francis (my father), Alfred and Mathew (Mac), who all lived in the Bay Area. While I don´t remember a lot, I do know we all got along well and had a good time. On reflection, it was probably the first time since 1946-47 that the four of them had been together with their parents.
Fast forward to 1972 when I first visited the Islands and went to Maui to visit my grandmother Helen and Aunt Rosalie and again met Charles and James. James was very friendly and always pretty laid back and always seemed to enjoy himself. We immediately got along well and he showed me around the island. I visited many times during the 1970´s and one time James was working at the Kaanapali Beach Hotel, at that time one of the very few hotels up past Lahaina, and he arranged to get a discounted room. It was an impressive hotel and location for someone from the mainland.
Over the years I have visited Maui and the islands almost yearly and I always made it a point to see him, and every time James was always friendly, relaxed and epitomized what I felt was the island hospitality. Nearly always barefoot and shirtless, he seemed to be enjoying life. He was a fun guy to be around. He knew lots of family history and a lot of our aunts, uncles and our cousins and helped me understand our history a lot better. He showed me pictures of our family from the old days. His knowledge of the older folks and their ways is a loss for future generations.
The last few years I was encouraging him to go to Portugal, Maderia, and the Azores. I think he went to Portugal once, but I am not sure. We discussed going together, but he never quite wanted to commit. The last time I talked to him was in July of this year- I had just returned from going to Portugal and told him of our families´ early history and we discussed how he should be going.
I will miss his easy going laugh, the way he phrased words and spoke and his overall good guy nature.