Mona Cheshire, 77, Newport realtor

Mona Cheshire spent her final decades living in Newport Beach, but

she never lost the aloha spirit.

Some of her happiest moments were spent conversing with relatives

at luaus in her birth state of Hawaii. Cheshire often hosted parties

and took pride in entertaining guests by playing the ukulele or

performing a hula dance.

“Hawaii is real family-oriented,” said Richard Flory, Cheshire’s

son-in-law. “There’s an openness and sense of connectedness that Mona

really embraced.”

Cheshire died Aug. 16 in Newport Beach. She was 77.

Born in Kau, Hawaii, Cheshire developed a love of nature and the

native culture. She swam and canoed in Hawaii, later paddling in the

first canoe race in Upper Newport Bay in 1959.

Five years earlier, Mona married Jack Cheshire, whom she had met

in Hawaii. The couple bought a home in Newport Beach in the late

1950s after Jack Cheshire had accepted a job in the real estate

development field.

The two worked as a team in the real estate industry for about 40

years, making connections with home developers throughout Southern

California.

They moved back and forth between Hawaii and Newport Beach several

times during the ‘50s, ‘60s and early ‘70s. While living in Hilo in

the 1960s, the Cheshires helped found two Christian schools that used

a back-to-basics teaching method that focused on reading, writing and

arithmetic.

In Newport Beach, Mona Cheshire befriended her neighbor, Amy

McCullough. On McCullough’s honeymoon, Mona Cheshire gave her friend

a guest membership at the Hawaiian canoe club, to which she belonged.

“She was very kind to everyone,” Flory said. “One of the things

everyone has said was she was always thinking of other people.”

McCullough chose the Cheshires to be her realtors when she bought

a town home in Newport Beach last summer. As a sign of her trust,

McCullough signed the paperwork and went into escrow without seeing

the building.

Jack Cheshire still runs Cheshire Properties, a residential real

estate firm based in Newport Beach. Since his wife’s death, he has

been surrounded by her family and their friends.

Flory said that’s the way Mona Cheshire would have wanted it.

“She was always happiest being with other people,” he said.

The family asks that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made, in

Mona Cheshire’s name, to Kamehameha Schools through the Ke Ali’i

Pauahi Foundation, 567 S. King Street, Suite 160, Honolulu, HI 96813.