KAILUA-KONA — It remains unclear if Charles Allan Skinner has living family anywhere in the wide world, but one thing is certain — he’s got a few advocates on Hawaii Island, where he will be buried today at noon in a service open to the public.
Skinner, who lived in Waimea before health issues forced him into assisted living, died at Hilo Medical Center in April at the age of 91. According to Michele Graham, a former neighbor and friend turned caregiver in the latter years of Skinner’s life, he was a veteran of two nation’s armed forces and logged service in two wars.
Graham said Skinner was a member of the Canadian Air Force during World War II and later served as a gunner in the United States Air Force during the Korean War. They are two of several details Dale Ross, president of West Hawaii Veterans Cemetery, is still trying to confirm as no one related to the former soldier can be found.
Today’s ceremony will proceed, however, even if Ross doesn’t clear up all the facts of who Skinner was at every point during the near century he spent alive.
“I’ve got one of my guys who will be tracking this and trying to get ahold of Canadian authorities so they’re aware. I don’t even know if he was still a citizen of Canada or not,” Ross said. “I still think if there’s any possibility there’s somebody in Canada, family or whatever, that knew him, they would want to be aware that he’s passed.”
Ross hasn’t been the only person working on Skinner’s behalf since the former aerial photographer and mechanic at Hawaiian Airlines passed away nearly three months ago.
Josh Stensrud, funeral director at Homelani Memorial Park, said several people along the way have attempted to locate Skinner’s family, including Stensrud himself.
Graham said based on conversations she had with Skinner and photographs she’s seen, he was the youngest of at least eight children and was raised in Teulon, Manitoba.
In his later years, Skinner often left Hawaii in his mind, returning to Canada and speaking of a brother Ben who handled the day-to-day operations on the family farm. He also sometimes mentioned Olive, a sister who once worked as a nurse at the hospital in Teulon.
Skinner was married twice, though his second stint as a husband was brief, and he never fathered any children.
While Stensrud and Ross have been unable to locate any nieces, nephews or other distant relatives who may exist, each have aided the departed in their own way.
“What we try to do is find out if these people are veterans,” said Stensrud, who had Skinner cremated after no next of kin was identified. “If they are, they belong in a veterans cemetery, so then we set up everything for them to be placed there.”
Ross not only made sure there was a place for Skinner’s urn in West Hawaii, but has also arranged a firing squad and a bugler for the ceremony.
He said Skinner’s is a situation with which he’s not entirely unfamiliar.
“It’s happened because we’ve got veterans, some that are homeless, and we may not know their families or where they’re from or a lot of details about them,” Ross said. “So I don’t think it’s all that uncommon, but it’s not real frequent either.”
Skinner was never homeless. In fact, he built his home in Waimea. Before that, he’d built homes in Arizona and on Kauai. All that is according to Graham, who is an advocate for Skinner by simply being the person who knew him best during his final years and sharing who he was with the world before it says goodbye.
Graham became Skinner’s caregiver and was eventually given power of attorney at his request when adult protective services mandated someone step into that role. Skinner was paralyzed from the waist down due to multiple sclerosis by the time Graham met him. Before that, he’d managed the disease on his own for more than 30 years.
“He was extremely independent,” said Graham, referring to the last few years of Skinner’s life, which he had to spend in assisted living. “He never gave up wanting to go home.”
Though he was proud of his service and a member of the American Legion, Skinner didn’t talk so much about his time in the military, Graham explained. Instead, he was most proud of his many years as a mechanic for Hawaiian Airlines.
This was never more evident than on a trip back to the Big Island from Oahu after a medical issue a few years ago. Graham accompanied Skinner on the flight, during which she told the flight attendant that her travel companion had worked for the airline for three decades.
A while later, the pilot emerged from the cockpit and extended his hand.
“Did you see that? The pilot came and shook my hand,’” Graham remembered Skinner saying after the encounter. “I think that was the proudest moment I saw with him.”