The Families
The Roths
Lurline Matson Roth & William P. Roth
After Lurline was born, Captain Matson did not command a ship again, but the family often traveled on the Matson ships to Hawaii, staying there for a month or more at a time. During one of these trips, Lillie and Lurline created the Matson Navigation Company flag from old signal flag pieces; the design is a circle with a large “M” surrounded by seven stars depicting the seven ships then in the fleet.
 William P. Roth and Lurline Matson Roth.
Captain Matson continued to expand the Matson Navigation Company, initiating the first ship with electricity, the first with cold storage, the first with a radio, and the first powered by steam. He was one of the founders of the Honolulu Oil Corporation.
The family bought a house near Mills College where they spent summers, and they would rent a house in San Francisco for the winter months. Lurline commuted to the city with her father to attend Miss Hamlin's, a private girl's school, studying music and art. Captain Matson valued Lurline as a companion and confidante even when she was a child. He loved horses, was an accomplished rider, and often took Lurline to horse auctions and amateur trotting races.
Although indulgent, Lurline remembers her father as “strict and straight-laced.” In 1913 when Lurline met Bill Roth, a young stockbroker in Honolulu, Captain Matson was very much against the match and delayed the engagement, sending Lurline and Lillie abroad. But Lurline persisted, and she and William Roth were married in 1914. Bill Roth sold his brokerage business and went to work as a secretary for Matson Navigation Company in San Francisco. He worked to advance and was named secretary-treasurer in 1916.
In October 1916, Captain William Matson died at age 67. After his death, Bill Roth was named general manager and vice president of Matson Navigation Company.
Bill and Lurline lived in San Francisco. Their son, William Matson Roth, was born in September 1916. Identical twins, Lurline and Berenice, named for their mother's first and middle names, were born in 1921.
In 1924 Lillie Low Matson purchased Why Worry Farm in Woodside for her daughter's family as a summer home and lived with them until her death. Why Worry Farm was a comfortable place for the family and had ample acreage and stabling for Mrs. Roth's horses.
Mrs. Roth started a “show stable” buying a five-gaited horse, a three-gaited horse, a Standardbred road horse, a Hackney horse, a Hackney pony and a jumper and hired a trainer. She competed her horses nationally every year, except during World War II when she devoted most of her time to Red Cross work. Lurline's favorites were the stallion “Chief of Longview,” a gift from her mother in 1925 and considered the greatest show horse of all time, and “Sweetheart on Parade,” a mare who was the winner of two consecutive world championships, purchased a few years later. Both were five-gaited American Saddlebred horses.
During the 1920s, the Matson Navigation Company, under Edward Tenney as President and Bill Roth as Vice President, expanded significantly, acquiring subsidiary companies, building super-freighters and building the 16-story Matson Building in San Francisco. The first of the Matson's hotels was built in 1927 – The Royal Hawaiian.
After Tenney's death in 1927, Bill Roth was named President. In the 1930s, under Roth's leadership, the Company built its fleet of luxury cruise ships and expanded into the hotel business in Hawaii. Four luxury passenger ships – the Malolo (later christened the Matsonia), Mariposa, Monterey and Lurline – were added to the fleet. New hotels – the Surfrider, Moana and the Princess Kailani – were built by the Matson Company. (These hotels were sold to the Sheraton Corporation in 1955.)
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