BEATRICE PATTON's HAWAII : WHERE SHE LEARNED A HAWAIIAN CURSE

EVOLS LIBRARY MANOA HAWAII EDU : BEATRICE PATTON'S HAWAII by Nancy J. Morris

This sixteen page paper, part of a longer one, is in a pdf file. And according to it, yes, Beatrice Ayers Patton, General George Patton's wife, loved Hawaii and in the years they were stationed there, 1925-1928 and 1935-1937, she learned much about the culture. 

The couple lived a life of luxury in Hawaii, on base during the week, in smart hotels on the weekends. The men played Polo. They sailed,  They partied with celebrities'.  However, something in Beatrice made her most interested in the native culture, the pre-missionary Pan-Polynesian society, Hearing the old stories of the goddess Pele, ghosts, and so on, she wrote them down and began a serious study of the history and religion of the ancients which she would later use when she wrote books and became a published author.

EXCERPT: (page 80) Beatrice's collection of tales grew. Apueo, the Hawaiian owl said to be a messenger of death, flew into a Queens's Hospital ward. None of the patients were on the critical list, but in the morning, seven of the eleven Hawaiian patients were found unexplainably dead. The black magic arts of the kahuna, according some credence be a plantation doctor acquaintance of the Patton's, especially seized Beatrice's imagination. The doctor told Beatrice that at least six of his patients had been prayed to death.....

(Beatrice began to write poetry, short stories, and a novel, interwoven with Hawaiian themes. Love without End was partially autobiographical.)

(I have not read this book.  It was reissued in paperback in the 1980's)

Beatrice was given a secret Hawaiian name and came to believe in the power of the Hawaiian gods. In her books she includes the art of black magic and a chant used by Hawaiian sorcerers to pray their enemies to death "MAY THE GREAT WORM GNAW YOUR VITALS AND MAY YOUR BONES ROT, JOINT BY LITTLE JOINT."

Was this the curse she may have used on Jean Gordon?

EXCERPT (page 85-86)

When Beatrice's niece, Jean Gordon, visited (Hawaii), Patton began a flirtation with the girl.  Gordon was a recent Boston debutante, pretty, lively, and the best friend of Ruth Ellen, the Patton's daughter. Unwisely Beatrice did not accompany Patton and Jean on a horse buying trip to a neighbor island, and when the two returned, it was clear to Beatrice that the flirtation had become an affair.  Beatrice forgave Patton, and the marriage survived.