Family/Spouse: Jocelin. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Hartwell Blake knows daughter is in deep in Iraq
By Paul C. Curtis - TGI Staff Writer (April 10, 2003)

 Imagine how Hartwell Blake must have felt when he stumbled into the kitchen to make coffee one recent Sunday morning, clicked on the TV and heard that a U.S. Army maintenance company that included a woman had been captured in Iraq. His daughter, 1st Lt. Courtney Blake Sugai, is in an Army maintenance company in Iraq.
 "My heart hit the floor," he recalls. "I was hoping for the best, imagining the worst," and began to understand the feelings of family members of those killed in action, missing in action, or prisoners of war.
 The captured soldiers turned out to be from a unit other than Sugai’s, but her unit has had its share of close calls, too, said Blake, a former county attorney.
 "Initially, I tried to be fatalistic about it," knowing that his daughter and other soldiers are well-trained and well-armed, and that whatever happens happens, said Blake, 58.
 And that was working until he heard that a maintenance company had been captured. Sugai’s company is a maintenance unit, supplying drinking water, fuel and other supplies to the soldiers closer to the front lines, whom Blake calls "the trigger-pullers."
 Her 101st Airborne group is west of Baghdad, near the newly renamed Baghdad International Airport. The last time father and daughter talked, she told him she was in Iraq, but couldn’t tell him where. She told him to watch CNN and they’d tell him where she is, he said. Blake replied that if the cameras ever pan her way, shoot him the shaka sign so he’ll know it’s her. Sugai says, "We’re very, very careful about security," something that doesn’t necessarily give her father a secure feeling. Especially when he tells her that folks on Kaua’i are asking about her and praying for her safe return, and she replies, "I know, we’ve had some real, real close calls."
 Blake said he’s not sure if that’s good news or bad news. The father is also thankful for those prayers, "because that’s something you can’t have too much of," he said. In fact, Blake, who has never seen himself as particularly religious, starts his mornings with prayers not only for the safety of Sugai, but for friends here and elsewhere who also have children fighting a war. It hasn’t been all intensity for Sugai, who with some of her fellow soldiers posed for pictures with Geraldo Rivera a day before he was asked to leave Iraq.
 Sugai, a Kaua’i High School graduate who used to dance hula with Kumu Kapu Alquiza’s Na Hula O Kaohikukapulani, was born and raised on Kaua’i. Her mother is Rosemary Blake, now of Florida. Sugai’s husband, 1st Lt. Iven Sugai, is a native of Ewa Beach, O’ahu, and could be on his way to Iraq now to rejoin his unit, after finishing U.S. Army Ranger training.
 She has been sharing a tent with a French journalist embedded with her unit, and was able to borrow her satellite phone to call Blake in Koloa. He said the connection was better than most on-island connections, calling it "crystal clear." An e-mail he received from his daughter this week gives insight into one soldier’s view of the war. "My goal is to get my soldiers and myself home safe," she said. "Today I reflected on why we are here. It finally sunk in that I am not just here because I was ordered to come here," she said. "I actually realized that I want to he here to help the people in this country have a better life and rid them of this corruption and cruelty." She also said she is thankful to be able to continue the Blake tradition of serving in the armed forces. Her father fought in the Army in Vietnam, she has a brother in the service and other generations of Blakes were soldiers as well. At a Sunday church service, "I prayed that we, the soldiers, remember why we are here, and to remember to be selfless in our service to our country and to the world," she said. She also asked Blake to forward her e-mail to her friends, and thanked all those who have sent letters, care packages and other signs of support. When her unit deployed from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, she told her father, "I don’t want to go, but it’s my duty."
 Some of Sugai’s experiences, of frustration at not being able to keep the front-line troops supplied as well as they and she would like, reminded Blake of some of his similar experiences in Vietnam. So, he told his daughter to remember and reward those who helped her get supplies into the hands of the fighting soldiers. While some items are like gold, even sharing arare or Kaua’i Kookies with those who helped her will leave a lasting impression on the receivers of those goodies, Blake said. Finally, Blake took the interview opportunity to commend The Garden Island for telling the stories of Kaua’i war families. The newspaper articles put names and faces on the conflict, he said. "If any of these people don’t come back, or are horribly wounded, or missing in action, they shouldn’t just be some nameless, faceless statistic," he said. "People should know who these Kaua’i people are who didn’t come back, or didn’t come back whole."
 Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).

Hartwell married Rosemary Jean HOLLAND on 28 Oct 1967 in Fort Myer, Arlington, Virginia, and was divorced. Rosemary (daughter of Lt. Col. Gould King HOLLAND and Mary Helen BROSE) was born on 28 Oct 1943 in Mason City, Cerro Gordo, Iowa. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

A daughter weighing 6 pounds 6 ounces was born to Mr. and Mrs. Gould K. Holland, Clear Lake, at the Park hospital Thursday. (Source: The Mason City Globe-Gazette, Friday, October 29, 1943)

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 1920, Des Moines, Polk, Iowa
• Census: 1930, Des Moines, Polk, Iowa
• Census: 1940, Des Moines, Polk, Iowa

Notes:

Lt. Gould K. Holland plans to return to Duke university, Duram, N. Car.. Thursday after spending a 15-day furlough with his wife and daughter, Rosemary, born Oct. 28 at Park hospital, Mason City. Lieutenant Holland was graduated from the finance department of officers training school at Duke university just before coming to Clear Lake and expects lo spend 2 weeks more in the fiscal school there before receiving an assignment. (Source: The Mason City Globe-Gazette, Nov. 3, 1943)

Lt. and Mrs. G. K. Holland and Rosemary went Thursday to Des Moines to spend a few days with the former’s parents, Mr. and Mrs O. H. Holland. Lt. Holland reports Tuesday at George Field, Ill., and Mrs. Holland and Rosemary wil come back to Clear Lake. (Source: The Mason City Globe-Gazette, May 19, 1944)

Major and Mrs. G. K. Holland and daughters, Rosemary and Judy, spent the weekend at the home of Mr. and Mrs. John Vance, 16 Jefferson N.W., en route from Arlington to Major Holland’s new assignment with the Air Force in Tokyo. Mrs. Holland, the former Mary Helen Brose, is a niece of Mrs. Vance. They also visited her mother, Mrs. Lela Brose, and her sister, Mrs. Herman Underkofler of Clear Lake, and another sister, Mrs. Maynard Odden, Mason City. The Hollands will be living in Tokyo for three years. (Source: The Mason City Globe-Gazette, Jul. 5, 1960)

Gould married Mary Helen BROSE. Mary (daughter of George Earl BROSE and Leila Myrta ANGELL) was born on 4 Mar 1915 in Decatur, Iowa; died on 9 Apr 2015 in Port Charlotte, Charlotte, Florida. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 1930, Clear Lake, Cerro Gordo, Iowa
• Census: 1940, Clear Lake, Cerro Gordo, Iowa

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 1910, Des Moines, Polk, Iowa
• Census: 1920, Des Moines, Polk, Iowa
• Census: 1930, Des Moines, Polk, Iowa
• Census: 1940, Des Moines, Polk, Iowa

Orson married Katherine WELLS. Katherine (daughter of George A. WELLS and Fanny Marie GOULD) was born in Aug 1894 in Wisconsin; died in 1954 in Des Moines, Polk, Iowa; was buried in Masonic Cemetery, Des Moines, Polk, Iowa. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 1900, New Richmond, St Croix, Wisconsin
• Census: 1920, Des Moines, Polk, Iowa
• Census: 1940, Des Moines, Polk, Iowa

George married Leila Myrta ANGELLFloyd, Iowa. Leila was born on 9 May 1893 in Swaledale, Cerro Gordo, Iowa; died on 5 Mar 1975 in Port Charlotte, Charlotte, Florida; was buried in Jefferson Memorial Park, Pleasant Hills, Allegheny, Pennsylvania. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]