Vale, Johnny Gooding!

A Tribute by J. D. McComish

NEWS has recently reached me from Tahiti of the death there, in Octo ber last, of Johnny Gooding. With Johnny’s passing another link with what were (to me, at any rate) the “good old days” is severed.

Johnny’s mother was the famous Lova ina, hostess of the Hotel Tiare, Papeete.

She died in 1918 —one of the victims of the ’flu epidemic which is said to have carried off about one-fourth of the inhabitants of Tahiti. Her father was Benjamin Chapman, an American; her mother was "Tahitian. Lovaina married Sam Gooding, an American; they had four children (two boys and two girls)— Johnny, Freda and Dora, and another unknown to me.

The elder boy was drowned in the Tuamotus during the big hurricane of 1906. Dora, a strikingly beautiful young woman, married Emile Martin, a promi nent businessman of Papeete: she died some years ago. Thus, with the passing of Johnny, the only surviving child of Lovaina is Freda (Mrs. Locher, of San Francisco), whose son, “Jon Hall,” is a prominent film actor.

After Lovaina’s death the Hotel Tiare passed into other hands. The family,

however, retained an old, two-storeyed building on the waterfront; this was known in Lovaina’s day as “The Annexe,” and was used to accommodate the over flow from the Hotel Tiare. Over the period of my several visits to Tahiti (1922-1933) “The Annexe” (or “Aina- Pare,” by which name it was then more generally known) was conducted by Johnny as a guest-house.

Everything connected with the estab lishment was most informal and, need less to say, there were seldom any empty rooms. Johnny’s own inimitable per sonality—his bulky his high pitched voice, coupled with his extreme use of superlatives when even the small est thing went wrong; his skill as a cook, and as a host, generally—made him a notable character, quite apart from the fact that he was Lovaina’s son.

About' 1935 or 1936 the old “Aina-Pare” building was demolished, and Johnny went into retirement at his country home. This was situated about three miles from Papeete, on high ground at the north-west point of the island, one of the most desirable sites imaginable. In whatever direction one looked there was beauty. Perhaps the most beautiful view was looking west to the island of Moorea, 12 miles distant, where the white spire of the church at Afareaitu stood out clearly against its background of fan tastically-shaped, bush-clad peaks.

AS in the case of his mother, Johnny figured'prominently in many books written about Tahiti. Eleanor Mor daunt wrote in “The Venture Book”: “ . . . ‘Johnny’s,’ the only place in which anyone with any sort of soul can stay in Papeete . . . First, Johnny himself, or Paree, as he prefers to be called, the son of the fattest woman and most famous cook in the Pacific, the friend of innumer able wanderers, the last refuge of innumerable derelicts.

“Johnny himself is round and fat and cherubic, with the forehead of a dean; one can, indeed, see him wearing a round, black shovel hat and a bishop’s apron, or wreathed like Bacchus in vine leaves, his smiling mouth smeared with grape juice.

As it is, he is attired in a dark silk pareu and white singlet. He is kind and smil ing, and glad to see me beyond belief; so altogether and, artlessly charming that it is little wonder to me that in speak ing of Tahiti every one I have ever met who came from here has spoken of Johnny first ...”

Robert Keable wrote in “Tahiti: Isle of Dreams”: “The son of Lovaina, whom I shall call by his native name of Pare, is a friend by whose friendship I am honoured. He is one of the very best, generous to a fault like his mother was. jolly, a supreme cook like her, too, well read, the soul of kindliness ...”