Henry Hun Choll Ahn

Henry Hun Choll Ahn, age 96 years & 5 Months, of West Hills, California passed away on Wednesday, August 14, 2024. Henry was born in Puunene, Maui, Territory of Hawaii on March 14, 1928 to Duk Choon Ahn and Myung Sang Cho, immigrants from Imperial Korea. His father was a field hand for the 36,000 acre Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company plantation. Many Asian immigrants found a foothold on the plantation and at its height, they made Puunene the largest sugar producer in the world. After toiling in the fields of the Waihee Valley, Henry remembered his father drank moonshine that his mother brewed and which was kept out of sight under the floorboards. He died when Henry was nine years old. His mother soon remarried and Henry would recall that his stepfather, Wan Shin Kim, saved the family from starvation. Grateful, Henry began assisting his stepfather who was a "ditch man" which meant that Henry began his day at 3am, trekking up a hillside to a cave where he released the irrigation gates that supplied mountain water to the plantation’s sugar cane fields and taro patches that the local Hawaiians grew below. Henry always retained his love of agriculture throughout his life and never shied away from hard work.

Henry, the fourth of six children in his family, was baptized and shepherded into faith through their local church. Sundays saw Henry and his friends walk two miles for 7 am mass. After mass one day, their local pastor asked, “Where do you run after mass?” “To the golf course,” (of course) which was across the street. There, Henry and his friends caddied and learned to play golf and in those days a caddie made 25 cents a round but you had to be there early to be selected as a caddy. Henry would spend 5 cents on lunch. From that point on, the pastor kept his 7am sermons short. Henry’s Catholic faith and love of golf was lifelong. Though Henry humbly deemed his brothers more skilled, he had his own triumphs on the green and achieved a "threepeat" as the senior club champion at River Ridge Golf Course in Oxnard, California in the early 90s.

Henry attended Baldwin High School in Wailuku, Maui where he was a popular and respected student. He was elected Junior class president and re-elected as Senior class president. His friend, Edward Jim writes in his yearbook, You have certainly proven yourself the cream of the crop being the Senior Class Pres. and Student Council Round Table Pres. Your personality has been tops. I can say that Mr. Ahn’s brains is the exact replica of Einstein's! As a teenager, Henry spent his summer working the pineapple fields of Lanai. At the end of the summer he would give his mother $260 to save for college. It was not enough and when Henry enrolled at the University of Hawaii, he found that he did not have the financial means to continue after his sophomore year. He took a job with the US Geological Service and worked with a team to conduct the original survey of Haleakalā, Maui’s volcano. He was drafted into the US Army and selected for Officer Candidate School, but failed the physical due to his amblyopia. Since his childhood, the treatment for amblyopia has not changed much and he, like many children, refused to wear an eye patch. And this would be his downfall as a golfer. He was a great ball striker and could work the ball left to right “like the pros,” he would say when trying to teach the skill to his children. He had a keen understanding of the physics of ball flight and the variables that determined its trajectory - wind speed and direction, ball spin, temperature, time of day, gravity. When Henry drove the ball, you would hear a crisp and clean click of ball on clubface, and it would take off like a guided missile on its predetermined path, curving around trees and other hazards until it met its target. But on earth, his putting often betrayed him; all of the subtle undulations of greens were imperceptible to someone with only one good eye. Henry was stationed at Schofield Barracks in Wahiawa, Oahu and this meant

that he could still play Kalakaua (on base) and Leilehua golf courses from time to time. He also made the Army golf team at Schofield and competed against the other armed forces golf teams. One day after playing golf, he saw Pearl Lee who was working on base at a tailor’s shop and spent the next years courting her. After a first date for coffee at Haleʻiwa Beach, Henry was smitten. Pearl’s brothers were not so smitten and told their sister that Henry talked too much about golf and also did not know when to go home. She eventually did tell him to go home and to not call her. But a year later, and now a sergeant, they rekindled their love. Henry and Pearl were married at Our Lady of Sorrow in Wahiawa. Their union brought forth four children, Melissa, Markham, Randall, and Heidi. Henry returned to the U and earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics with a desire to become an agricultural statistician (the F-test was developed as an agricultural statistic after all). Unable to find suitable employment on Oahu, Henry and Pearl, now with Lisa, decided that he should seek work on the mainland with Pearl and Lisa to follow in two years. The day after arriving in Los Angeles, Henry applied to and was offered a position at Douglas Aircraft in Santa Monica. The two year plan to wait was scrapped, and Pearl and Lisa joined Henry in Los Angeles to build their life together. At Douglas, Henry learned about aerodynamics and contributed to the refinement of the iconic and legendary DC series planes, some of which still fly today. However, it was at Hughes Aircraft, in the missile systems division, that Henry found work that defined his career. As a test engineer, he continued to study aerodynamics and conducted wind tunnel tests as part of the design process. His work was always praised for its completeness and attention to detail. He took his work seriously but did not take his work home. Life was not all work; Henry relished his many trips to Las Vegas with Pearl, friends, and family members from Hawaii. His background in statistics made him a master of odds at the craps table, a skill that he has imparted to his grandchildren, much to Pearl's dismay. He loved to play MahJong at family gatherings and loved to teach his children and grandchildren the fun and excitement of gaming. If you are an Ahn, then you have Henry’s inherent attraction to gaming. His love of agriculture made him a master of a home orchard that he planted, grafted, and grew and which at one point, numbered over a 100 fruit bearing trees. Henry and Pearl dried fruits, made jam, and shared their bounty with family, friends, and neighbors, and anyone who wanted to pick fruit (often not the children!). His golf obsession was unleashed as a homeowner and he studied enough turf management and groundskeeping at Pierce College to install a bentgrass (agrostis stolonifera) putting green in the backyard… and he worked on his putting, his old nemesis.

The family settled in West Hills CA which at the time was part of Canoga Park. One day, Henry packed

the kids in the car and drove over to Woodland Hills looking for a Catholic church. In the parking lot of

the relatively new parish, St. Bernardine of Siena, he encountered a man knee deep digging a ditch to fix a leaky irrigation pipe in the parking lot next to the rectory. Covered in mud, Monsignor Murray, then Father Murray, welcomed Henry and the children to the parish and enrolled the little ones in school – all from the ditch. Father Murray was a “ditch man” and Henry thought he was the coolest priest he had met as did the children who had never seen a priest like that before. It is about as humble a meet and greet as is possible and the family has remained parishioners since that moment. St. Bernardine later hired Pearl as the school secretary and she spent 19 years working alongside Sister Anita Horchick, S.N.D., the school principal, and all of the pastors who had a turn in the parish including Monsignor Dotson.

As their family grew, Henry and Pearl’s love and commitment never wavered. He took immense pride in his children, ensuring they were raised as Catholics and received a solid education, all at UCLA. His

heart swelled further with his grandchildren and great grandchildren's achievements, especially those who have chosen to serve the country he held dear.

Henry would often turn to Pearl with words of gratitude, "Thank you for marrying me." His journey, from

a plantation boy in the Waihee Valley to a man respected and revered, was rich with service, devotion, and boundless love. As Henry Hun Choll Ahn leaves this world, he leaves a legacy of faith, integrity, and

aloha spirit that will forever be treasured by his loved ones.

A memorial mass for Henry will be held Saturday, September 28, 2024 at 11:00 AM at St. Bernardine of Siena Catholic Church, 24410 Calvert Street, Woodland Hills, California 91367. An inurnment will occur Monday, September 30, 2024 at 1:00 PM at Los Angeles National Cemetery, 950 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90049.