John Edward Rocha was born in Portugal (probably in the Azores) in 1876 and emigrated to Hawaii in 1880 with his parents Manuel and Elzida Rocha. He married Mary Carvalho, Hawaiian-born daughter of Portuguese immigrants, in about 1905, and in rapid succession four children (sons Marseillaise/Marcy and Harold, and daughters Cecilia and Olga) were born.

Rocha was a tailor, and operated his own designing and tailoring business in Honolulu, where he employed several other tailors. On returning to his business one day in 1913, he found one of his employees mending an old coat. Rocha was angered by the sight – his business served some of the finest families in Honolulu, and he ordered the employee to drop what he was doing. They were not in the business of patching and mending old clothes, he said. Continue reading John Edward Rocha: Non-Mormon Champion of the Saints →