KANNAN TOLENTINO Obituary

KANNAN NANIYA LEE TOLENTINO Kannan "Naniya" Lee Tolentino, 82, passed away peacefully on October 2, 2025 in Kane'ohe, surrounded by her granddaughter, daughters, and Hale Ku'ike staff. She was born to mother Yu Sam Sun and father Lee Ho Gil in Gyeonggi-do, Seoul, South Korea on August 25, 1943. She is preceded in death by her husband, Cenon C. Tolentino. After marrying Dad, Mom remained in the Philippines during Dad's military service in the United States Army, and when his military service concluded, they traveled to Texas, drove to California, and arrived in Honolulu, Hawai'i in 1967, with, as mom always told the story, "only one dollar in my coat pocket." Naniya raised three children while employed as a professional housekeeper at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki for four decades, where she greeted guests and performed her job as roomkeeper with integrity, pride, and an excellent work ethic. This caused Naniya to win multiple awards during her employment with the Hilton. She won Pride of the House in 1989 and Roomkeeper of the Year in 1994 among other awards. A highlight of her career as professional housekeeper is that on January 12, 1994, Naniya received a formal commendation from then-governor John Waihe'e for receiving the Hawai'i Hotel Association's Na Po'e Pa'ahana Award as the Room Keeper of the Year for the State of Hawai'i. She retired from the Hilton Hawaiian Village as professional housekeeper on August 16, 2010, recognized for her exemplary service spanning forty years. Perhaps of greatest importance is that, despite losing her mother at the very young age of 6 yrs old shortly before the Korean War began and experiencing wartime trauma due to prolonged military occupation in Korea, and despite those effects of wartime trauma reverberating throughout her life, Naniya was a resilient woman and an especially caring, observant, responsive, and engaged mom, gramma, and aunt to her children and grandchildren, and nieces and nephews. Throughout her entire life, Naniya offered mothering love and kindness to so many. Naniya was a doting and proud grandmother to one granddaughter, Anais, three grandsons Paxton, Maxwell, and Nikki, and one great granddaughter, Milana Rose. She had a way of making each of her grandchildren feel that they were the apple of her eye, and she was most happy when she was caring for her grandbabies and pouring her love, care, time (and especially lots of food) into them. She was a great cook, and family and friends often requested and reminisced about her delicious Korean dishes, like kal-bi, jap chae, and ban chan, like spinach and bean sprouts namul. Her generosity with family, friends, guests, and strangers, and the fact that she easily made friends, and kept close, lifelong friends, are part of Naniya's legacy of a life well-loved and well-lived. Naniya and Cenon spent six decades together, from 1962 until Dad's passing in 2022. Mom was just beside herself when Dad became ill, fought through his illness, and passed. They both had always envisioned going through the last steps of this life together. One of our core memories of Mom and Dad is how they would gather vegetables from their yard, like calamungay or paria, and painstakingly prepare the leaves and fruit with their handsboth their hands weathered through their decades of hard work at the Hilton Hawaiian Village and Hawaiian Cementto make delicious dinengdeng for us. We find comfort in knowing that Mom and Dad are "galabanting" together again. Naniya, our beloved Mom and Gramma, will be greatly missed. She is survived by son Teddy (Susan), and daughters Tina (Thierry), granddaughter Anais, great granddaughter Milana; and Tricia (Nikola), grandsons Paxton, Maxwell, and Nikki. Naniya's family offers their deepest heartfelt gratitude and respect to mom's care teams who provided excellent, compassionate, and responsive care at the Queen's Geriatric Clinic and at Hale Ku'ike Bayside. Mahalo, Mahalo, Mahalo. As Mom taught us to say, Daedanhi Gamsahamnida. Private services were held.