Hans Eckart (DaM VIII 3)/en

Hans Eckart (DaM VIII 3, in the middle) with his brothers William (DaM VIII 11, left) and Fritz (DaM VIII 9, right), shortly after his return, around 1935.

Hans Rudolf Eckart, (*May 11, 1882, Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii, USA, †April 12, 1942), married Eva Pelekai (†1905)

Hans Rudolf Eckart was born on May 11, 1882, in Honolulu, Hawaii. He was Maximilian Eckart’s eldest son. He spent his childhood and youth in his parents’ house in Honolulu and on Maui. It was probably in 1902 that he married the Hawaiian Eva Pelekai; their daughter Alice was born on June 14, 1903. Eva died only two years later. Hans took his daughter Alice to his parents’ house, where she stayed, and went to sea. In the years that followed, he worked as a machinist for the Seattle Navy and later moved to Minneapolis, New York and Newport News. Eventually, he settled in Minneapolis and worked for a truck company. He had broken off all contact with his family. During a court hearing in 1922, four years after his father’s death, Hans was declared dead in absentia by his family. A decade later, in the 1930s, he returned to Hawaii after an absence of more than 30 years.