Frank Silva
Year Inducted: 2003
W.H. Greenwell Ranch | Hawai'i
Palani Ranch | Hawai'i
Frank was born in 1924, the 13th of 17 children of Frank and Minnie Silva of Holualoa, Kona, Hawai`i. He grew up and attended school there until the 9th grade, when he quit, to help out at home. His love for the cowboy life started early.
Frank began his paniolo career at the W.H. Greenwell Ranch, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, father and uncles who were all paniolo on the same ranch. When not working cattle, cowboys broke horses in the open, as they had no breaking pens. In the early days there weren’t many roads and when they worked cattle mauka, they stayed up at the mauka homestead, Puulehua, sometimes for three or four months at a time. They roped and branded a lot of rangey cattle.
In 1962, Frank became ranch foreman and several years later, his son, Frank Silva, Jr. came to work for the ranch as well.
The Greenwell family sold W.H. Greenwell Ranch in the late 1980’s and Frank went to work for Richard Greenwell and Jack Greenwell. After Jack’s death, Frank retired, but Palani Ranch leased Jack Greenwell’s land and hired Frank out of retirement to work cattle on the land he knew so well.
When Frank was 75, after years of broken bones from cowboy work, he finally quit riding and gave in to riding in a truck. Today, Frank maintains about 500 head of feeders for Palani Ranch, doing the work mostly alone. He still checks the water system and maintains the fences on the same land that he has worked on for more than 53 years.
“I could ride all day. I could ride a hundred miles and it wouldn’t bother me. I never complain. To me, never enough. I’d ride day and night if I didn’t have to sleep. I love it!”