"The Getting-Aroundest Person"

"As the propellers of the DC-6 slowed for a landing in Hilo, Hawaii, the passengers found the vista a curiosity. It was 1962 and Hawaii's Big Island was not the well-touristed spot it is today: No boutique hotels, no swim-up bars, no strip malls. The natural scenery was practically the only attraction. But what an attraction: Royal Palm trees, their shaggy green-brown leaves flapping skyward, beckoned the travelers from Honolulu to pause awhile on the flat stretches of land and sand in the flittering ocean. Peering below, the passengers began their usual rustlings, gathering bags, opening and closing compacts, folding newspapers. One woman, in her early sixties with a thick mane of bobbed gray-white hair secured by a headband, wearing a shawl and a swirling skirt, kept her big cornflower blue eyes focused on the vew."

Who is this woman?

Clementine Paddleford.

Read about her in Hometown Appetites: The Story of Clementine Paddleford, the Forgotten Food Writer Who Chronicled How America Ate by Kelly Alexander and Cynthia Harris.