Theresa Laanui

Theresa Owana Kaohelelani Laanui (1860–1944) was a member of the royal family during the last years of the Kingdom of Hawaii and into the territorial period.

Life

She was born May 1, 1860, in Honolulu. Her father was Prince Gideon Kailipalaki Laanui, a brother of Princess Elizabeth Kekaaniau. Her mother was Kamaikaopa. She was a member of the House of Laanui, a collateral branch of the House of Kamehameha. Her children (except her two daughters by Cartwright) and male-line descendants belong patrilineality to the Wilcox family.

As a child, she would often go to the palace of King Kamehameha V to make lei for him. She was married four times, although she only had children from her first and second marriages. She was one-eighth French (via her great-grandfather Jean Baptiste Rives) and the rest Hawaiian descent. After her parents died in 1871, she was adopted by her aunt Elizabeth Kekaaniau Pratt.

She married Alexander Joy Cartwright III, son of Honolulu businessman and baseball pioneer Alexander Cartwright II on April 23, 1878. By this marriage she had two daughters, Daisy Emmalani Cartwright (1879–?) and Eva Kuwailanimamao Cartwright (1881–1948). They divorced, and he eventually moved to San Francisco and married Susan Florence McDonald.

Her second marriage was on August 20, 1896 to Robert William Kalanihiapo Wilcox (1855–1903), a military leader who then became...
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