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August 2, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

‘My Heart Went Pitty-Pat’

She was born January 2, 1905 in Cleveland, the daughter of an Australian opera singer and an American vaudevillian. She spent most of her youth in Cincinnati, where she was enrolled in the city’s music conservatory.

Her family had been theatrical players and, as a result, she had been to Australia, Mexico, Canada, Europe and even Hawai‘i while growing up. She followed her family into the entertainment industry making a career as a dancer; her stage name was Norma Allen.

Just out of high school, she had eloped with a graduate of the Harvard dental school who was also a musician and moved to London, England. After a few years of traveling around Europe and competing in ballroom dancing competitions, the couple broke up.

Needing to support herself, she decided to continue dancing and to learn to teach as well. By marrying she had given away her opportunities to go to college. As she recalled, “they wouldn’t take married girls at Wellesley.”

While working at Arthur Murray’s dance studio in New York City, she had the opportunity to come to Hawai‘i to teach dance at “the Boleyn-Anderson studio at the Royal Hawaiian hotel.”

While in high school, she claimed to have seen a photograph of a man in a movie magazine posing with Douglas Fairbanks Sr and Mary Pickford; impressed by the “handsome, athletic young Hawaiian” whom the couple had “discovered,” she saw this was a chance to meet him.

She arrived on the Lurline just after Christmas in 1938. Several months later, she asked for an introduction to the man she had dreamed about as a teen-ager.

When she finally met the man (the most eligible bachelor in the islands, fifteen years older than she) “my heart went pitty-pat.”

While she claims it to be “love at first sight,” he took the relationship more cautiously. They dated for a year.

He almost lost her toward the end of 1939. While spending Christmas on the Big Island with friends she mulled over a marriage proposal from one of her “dancing pupils” who “was much younger than (him) and very wealthy.”

This young man “begged her to marry him and move to the mainland.” She called her earlier suitor to wish him a Merry Christmas. During the conversation she also told him about the proposal and he simply told her, “Baby, come home.” She did.

On August 2, 1940, the couple slipped out of Honolulu on an interisland flight.

Duke Paoa Kahanamoku and Nadine Alexander were married in Mokuʻaikaua Church in Kailua-Kona. A small intimate ceremony ensued with the Reverend Stephen Desha presiding.

“(O)ur attendants were Francis I‘i Brown, Duke’s best friend, and Francis’s lady companion, Winona Love, a fine hula dancer and movie star, and Bernice Kahanamoku.” Also in attendance were Kahanamoku’s brother Sam, Bernice’s fiancée Gilbert Lee, and Doris Duke, who had come with Sam.

They stayed at Francis Brown’s vacation home on the waterfront on the Kona-Kohala Coast. Nadine recalled it was “a charming place. Isolated. No Telephone. They had one of those generators as there was no electricity, which was lovely for Duke, but it wasn’t my cup of tea.”

Duke thoroughly enjoyed his honeymoon as “every morning, before the sun would come up, Francis would throw stones on the roof to wake Duke.” Nadine reflected, “he’d jump up, have a cup of coffee, and the two of them would go out fishing. All day, every day.”

They became Honolulu’s unofficial ‘first couple,’ frequently entertaining dignitaries and celebrities at their Black Point home. “They were a striking couple. They were awful good looking together.”

“Duke was always very well groomed and she looked very dainty next to him. She was a very pretty woman and kept getting prettier as she got older. Her features became very delicate and she became rather fragile.”

“She always dressed well and looked very elegant. She took pains with her appearance. I admired the fact that she was always vivacious and interested in everything, and a good sport.” (Aileen Riggin Soule, Olympic gold medalist (diving, 1920) Duke’s teammate on the 1920 and 1924 Olympic swimming and diving teams)

Duke died January 22, 1968; upon Nadine’s death on July 17, 1997, their estate was donated to the John A Burns School of Medicine to be used for scholarships awarded to medical students of Hawaiian ancestry. (UH) (All information here is from Nendel and Luis & Bigold.)

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Duke and Nadine Kahanamoku-Married-Mokuaikaua-August 2, 1940-BM
Duke and Nadine Kahanamoku-Married-Mokuaikaua-August 2, 1940-BM

Filed Under: Prominent People Tagged With: Hawaii Island, Kona, Kailua-Kona, Duke Kahanamoku, Mokuaikaua, Nadine Kahanamoku, Hawaii

July 24, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

James Steiner

Born in Mirschikau, Pilsen, Bohemia (Czechoslovakia) July 24, 1860, James Steiner received business training at Frankfort-on-the-Main and moved to the United States in 1881.

“(Steiner) first worked as a bell hop or a waiter someplace in Missouri, someplace in St. Louis, Missouri. Then he met a man that spoke German, like himself, and this man whose name I do not recall since it was not given to me, suggested that he, my father, come out to Hawai‘i and find a place for himself. That’s how he got here.”

“(M)y father came down here (in 1882) and he worked for a restaurant up on Hotel Street just on the ‘Ewa side of the old YMCA. The owner of that restaurant was a Lionel Hart and the restaurant was known as Hart’s Restaurant.”

“It was in this restaurant that my father worked as a waiter and later on he was taken in by Mr. Lionel Hart as a partner. There was one of my brothers named Lionel after this said Lionel Hart. At a later time, the family established a home close to that restaurant.”

“(I)t was there, on that corner or that area there bounded by Adams Lane, Bishop Street, and Hotel Street that ice cream was made here commercially. He was the first one that sold ice cream here commercially.” (Ernest Steiner, Oral History)

A February 15, 1887 ‘Notice’ in the newspaper noted a co-partnership had been formed (Hart & Steiner) and they carried on the Elite Ice Cream Parlors in Honolulu, manufacturing ice cream, Cakes, Candles, Curios and other incidentals. (Daily Bulletin, February 15, 1887)

Steiner was known all over the islands as the “Ice Cream and Candy King.” (Nellist)

“Over a thousand guests recepted the generous hospitality of Hart Co last evening in participating in the opening of their beautiful and handsome ice cream parlors in the Elite building”

“There are very few parlors in the United States that will rival the Elite parlors in beauty refinement of taste or excellence in appointment.” (Independent, November 1, 1900)

“He decided to give up the restaurant business and then he established another business right in that area there and it was known as the Island Curio Company.” (Ernest Steiner, Oral History)

The Island Curio Company was a major producer of postcards. Whether or not the subjects depicted on postcards had originally posed for the photographs that were sources for the cards, once imaged on postcards, these subjects became mass commodities in a visual economy of images that linked Hawai‘i with America and Europe.

From mass production and sale in Hawai‘i, the postcards became individual or private objects for the purchasers and the ultimate recipients. (UH)

They sold more than postcards … “Next to the Bishop Museum, the greatest and best Polynesian collection, is that of the Island Curio Company with its headquarters on Hotel Street, Honolulu … (and) for nearly half a century has been stacking up these native curios from almost every part of the island.” (Mid-Pacific Magazine)

In 1889, Steiner and Rosa Schwarz (from Czechoslovakia) were married in Hawai‘i. They had a family of four boys and one girl .

Steiner pioneered in the purchase and improvement of beach lots at a time when Waikiki was considered too far from the center of Honolulu and only served as a week-end, outing and bathing resort, and selected his property with good judgment and vision for the future. (Nellist)

“(T)hey moved to Waikiki in about 1899. The area there where they moved was on Kalākaua Avenue, just on the ‘Ewa side of what is now known as Kuhio Beach.”

“I don’t think there were any, there was very few other people in the area. There was one prominent Hawaiian family there that lived, oh, within eighty or ninety feet from our place. That was the William Kanakanui family. Mr. Kanakanui was a surveyor and engineer working for the Territory.” (Ernest Steiner, Oral History)

Steiner named his Waikiki home Kaiona “the native word for English ‘mermaid’ and German ‘lorelei,’ the suggestion having come from CL Hopkins, Hawaiian court interpreter.”

“Colonial in style, modified to suit the tropical climate, the house interior contains many innovations in the building craft. Ripley, Reynolds & Davis are the architects, while the Pacific Engineering Co., Ltd., is the builder.” (Star-Bulletin, August 10, 1912) It later became the Halekai Officer’s Club during WWII and later the Sands Nightclub and Restaurant.

“James Steiner is about to retire from the curio business, in which he is one of the local pioneers. Beginning as a clerk in Hart’s ice cream parlors about a quarter of a century ago, Mr. Steiner developed into one of Honolulu’s shrewdest business men.”

“A monument to his enterprise is the Elite block, one of the first three or four modern business structures of Honolulu.” (Hawaiian Star, June 20, 1911)

The three-story brick with terra cotta trimmings building was part of a “New Era of Building in Honolulu” which the 1900 Thrum’s Hawaiian Annual anticipated as “promising to be the handsomest business block in the city, so far.”

He retired from business in 1914 to devote his time to the management and development of his extensive property holdings in Honolulu and Waikiki. Steiner died in 1939.

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Island Curio Postcard-UH-Manoa
Island Curio Postcard-UH-Manoa
Steiner mansion still under construction on the right-1913
Steiner mansion still under construction on the right-1913
Steiner home used as an Officer's Club before Pearl Harbor attack
Steiner home used as an Officer’s Club before Pearl Harbor attack
James_Steiner-Waikiki-home-interior
James_Steiner-Waikiki-home-interior
James_Steiner-Waikiki-home
James_Steiner-Waikiki-home
Island Curio-eBay
Island Curio-eBay
Halekai (Army Officer's Club)-kamaaina56
Halekai (Army Officer’s Club)-kamaaina56
Elite Block-PCA-Jan_1,_1901
Elite Block-PCA-Jan_1,_1901
Elite Ice Cream Parlors-Daily Bulletin, July 10, 1885
Elite Ice Cream Parlors-Daily Bulletin, July 10, 1885
Steiner Mansion on the right known as the Sands Nightclub and Restaurant-early 1960s
Steiner Mansion on the right known as the Sands Nightclub and Restaurant-early 1960s
Curly Koa lidded Calabash from Island Curio-eBay
Curly Koa lidded Calabash from Island Curio-eBay
Steiner headstone
Steiner headstone

Filed Under: General, Buildings, Prominent People, Economy Tagged With: Hawaii, James Steiner

July 1, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Antoinette Francesa Marin

Don Francisco de Paula Marin (known to the Hawaiian as “Manini”) was a Spaniard who arrived in the Hawaiian Islands in 1793 or 1794 (at about the age of 20.) Manini’s nickname appears to be the closest way that the Hawaiians could pronounce his name.

Marin spoke four languages (he arrived fluent in Spanish, French and English, and learned Hawaiian) and was employed by Kamehameha as Interpreter, Bookkeeper and part time Physician (although he had no formal medical training, he had some basic medical knowledge.) He also served as purchasing agent for the arms that proved decisive to Kamehameha’s victory of the Battle of Nu‘uanu (1795.)

Among his several children, Marin had a daughter, Antoinette Francesa Marin, who was born on October 6, 1832 in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi.

Her father died in 1837 and Antoinette was hānai to Dr Thomas Charles Byde and Grace Kamaikui Rooke; he was one of three physicians in Honolulu in the 1830s. (Santa Cruz Sentinel, December 14, 1941) (Emma, later Queen Emma, was also adopted by the Rookes.)

Antoinette later married Lyman Swan (born on February 26, 1823 at Jefferson County in Watertown, New York,) a partner in Swan & Clifford. “In 1848 (Ornan O Clifford) came to Honolulu and shortly after entered into co-partnership with Lyman Swan in the baking business, at the corner of King and Fort streets.” (Hawaiian Gazette, May 28, 1884)

In April of 1853, Antoinette gave birth to the couple’s first child, Olivia (“Lily,”) and the young Swan family appeared to be living a life of prosperity and promise in Honolulu. (Dunn & Stoner)

Thrum notes Swan and Clifford were consignees to the first cargo of ice to the Islands that came from Sitka, per brig “Noble,” in October, 1854.

But as often would be the case with Lyman Swan throughout his life, appearances were often deceiving. Business records for Swan & Clifford indicate that while the chandlery was doing a booming business, income was not keeping up with expenses.

Apparently, unbeknownst to his partner, Swan was forging $40,000 in promissory notes and leaving over $80,000 in unpaid bills. A $5,000 reward was offered for information on his whereabouts. (Anderson)

Clifford declared his innocence. (Dunn & Stoner) Lyman left town and headed for California.

“Swan & Clifford bought and refitted the condemned bark George for whaling and trading … the senior member of the firm taking passage by her, on departure, to evade the impending crisis in their affairs in consequence of his own questionable transactions.”

“In the fall the vessel reported at San Francisco with 500 bbls oil, where Mr Swan remained. The ship on arrival here was seized by the marshal for the assignees and in due time was sold, as she lay”. (Thrum) Lyman was apprehended in Alameda.

All of the forged bills had been executed in Swan’s handwriting. While Hawaiian authorities tried to extradite Swan, he was never to return to the islands. He endured several years of both civil and criminal cases against him in San Francisco (he was found guilty on several, but not all, counts;) it’s uncertain if he was sentenced to any time in prison. (Dunn & Stoner)

Somehow, he managed to bring Antoinette and daughter Lily to California during his court cases, where the family first resided in San Jose. (Dunn & Stoner) Then, the family settled in Santa Cruz in around 1857.

They are considered one of the ‘Pioneers’ of Santa Cruz; Lyman was one of the signatories of the Constitution and Roll of Members of the Society of Pioneers of Santa Cruz County.

Swan returned to his roots and opened a bakery on Pacific Avenue; the Swans were popular and widely respected pillars of the Santa Cruz business community.

The family purchased a large plot of land in downtown Santa Cruz, at what is now the corner of Front and Cathcart Streets, that backed up to the San Lorenzo River. At least two of the Swan sons, Frank and Alfred, then in their twenties, joined in the family business. (Dunn & Stoner)

But the Swan marriage was not a happy one. Lyman Swan’s larceny may have long been hidden from the Santa Cruz community, but he couldn’t hide it from Antoinette, whom he had shamed with his activities in Honolulu.

Antoinette decided to return to the islands for lengthy periods of time and was Queen Kapiʻolani’s Chambermaid for approximately 5-years. (Santa Cruz Sentinel, October 3, 1905) She returned to Santa Cruz.

When Princes David Kawānanakoa (Koa,) Edward Keliʻiahonui and Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole, nephews of Queen Kapiʻolani, were schooled at St Matthew’s Hall in San Mateo in 1885, they were placed under the careful eye of Antoinette Swan.

When the Swan home became too crowded, the princes boarded at the nearby Wilkins House, located half a block away, on Pacific and Cathcart streets. (Dunn & Stoner)

The three princes are noted in the first account of surfing anywhere in the Americas: “The young Hawaiian princes were in the water, enjoying it hugely and giving interesting exhibitions of surf-board swimming as practiced in their native islands.” (Santa Cruz Daily Surf, July 20, 1885; Divine)

“Mrs Antoinette Don Paul Marie Swan was courtly in manner, and had a charm in her dealing with people that won many friends.”

“She was a kind neighbor and a devoted mother, loved by her children.” She was clearly a well-liked and widely respected member of the community. (Santa Cruz Daily Surf, October 2, 1905; Dunn & Stoner)

She died on October 1, 1905 at the age of 72 and was buried at the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) Cemetery. (Society of California Pioneers of Santa Cruz County)

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Antoinette_Swan-400
Antoinette_Swan-400
Kalakaua & Kapiolani - Iolani Palace with Col. Charles Hastings Judd (Chamberlain), and Antoinette F. Manini Swan (Chambermaid)-WC
Kalakaua & Kapiolani – Iolani Palace with Col. Charles Hastings Judd (Chamberlain), and Antoinette F. Manini Swan (Chambermaid)-WC
Antoinette-Swan-400
Antoinette-Swan-400
Queen_Kapiolani_on_the_Iolani_Palace_grounds with Antoinette Swan-(PP-97-14-016)
Queen_Kapiolani_on_the_Iolani_Palace_grounds with Antoinette Swan-(PP-97-14-016)
Royal_Bungalow_outside_Iolani_Palace_(PP-11-2-003)
Royal_Bungalow_outside_Iolani_Palace_(PP-11-2-003)
Kalakaua & Kapiolani and others in front of the Bungalow including Antoinette Swan PP-96-13-016
Kalakaua & Kapiolani and others in front of the Bungalow including Antoinette Swan PP-96-13-016
Chest of Don Francisco de Paula y Marin, later Antoinette Swan-PP-37-4-005
Chest of Don Francisco de Paula y Marin, later Antoinette Swan-PP-37-4-005
Chest of Don Francisco de Paula y Marin, later Antoinette Swan-PP-37-4-004
Chest of Don Francisco de Paula y Marin, later Antoinette Swan-PP-37-4-004
Frank Manini to Antoinette Swan-letter (portion)
Frank Manini to Antoinette Swan-letter (portion)

Filed Under: Ali'i / Chiefs / Governance, Prominent People Tagged With: Rooke, King Kalakaua, Antoinette Swan, Hawaii, Kapiolani, Don Francisco de Paula Marin

June 28, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Muses of Hawai‘i

Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives recently produced another Cemetery Pupu Theatre event at Oʻahu Cemetery – Muses of Hawai‘i.

It’s a unique dinner theatre experience where history comes alive for the evening, brought to you by Mission Houses and Oʻahu Cemetery.

Mission Houses discovers stories from the lives of prominent Hawaiʻi residents and brings those stories back to life – in the cemetery, at the place where that person is buried.

Muses of Hawai‘i – the current version of ‘dinner theatre in a cemetery’ is focused on a small sample of people – historians and authors, a dramatist and actor, a museum curator, and a musician – who have contributed to the humanities in the history of Hawai‘i.

These characters all speak from their own perspectives about the same place and approximate time. These people all knew one another, or at least knew about one another, and often had something to say about each other.

See if you can catch their references to each other during their performances.

Standing at five different headstones, actors perform a monologue of the lives of the people buried at Oʻahu Cemetery.

Actors are dressed in period costume, telling the life events of select individuals, at their respective grave sites.

There was nothing ghoulish about it; rather, it was very effective storytelling.

Johnny Noble (Portrayed by Zach Thomas Woods)

Johnny Noble (1892-1944,) who took his inspiration from Sonny Cunha, who created hapa haole music in 1900 by mixing traditional Hawaiian music with American ragtime. Noble took Cunha’s idea a step further and mixed Hawaiian music with jazz and blues with for a new style of hapa haole music.

Critics said it degraded and commercialized Hawaiian music, but audiences loved it. “Sing Me a Song of Hawaii,” “My Little Grass Shack,” “Hula Blues,” and “Hawaiian War Chant” are among some of his most recognizable songs. He also recorded hundreds of traditional Hawaiian songs. (Wayne Paakaula is the Ukulele player.)

Ethel Damon (Portrayed by Alicia Rice)

Ethel Moseley Damon (1883 – 1965) authored several plays including Punahou’s 75th Anniversary Pageant and The Romance of Reality: A Historical Play in Two Acts, a centennial missionary memorial play.

She also authored Samuel Chenery Damon (a biography of her grandfather), Early Hawaiian Churches and Their Manner of Building, and her seminal history of Kaua‘i Koamalu: A Story of Pioneers on Kauai.

Thomas Thrum (Portrayed by Eli Foster)

Thomas Thrum (1842 – 1932) operated a book and stationery store. In 1875 he produced the first issue of Hawaiian Almanac and Annual which is commonly referred to as Thrum’s Annual.

He was the first editor of Paradise of the Pacific in 1888 and published several collections of Hawaiian legends and several publications on Hawaiian heiau.

Emma Nakuina (Portrayed by Kahana Ho)

Emma Nakuina (1847 – 1929) was the first woman curator of a museum in Hawai‘i. She became curatrix of the Hawaiian National Museum in the Judicial Building during Kalakaua’s reign and authored Hawaii: Its People and Their Legends and Ancient Hawaiian Water Rights and Some Customs Pertaining to Them, among many others.

Nathaniel Emerson (Portrayed by Christopher Denton)

Nathaniel B. Emerson (1839 – 1915) was a physician, author, and husband of Dr. Sarah Emerson. He was the author of The Unwritten Literature of Hawaii: the Sacred Songs of the Hula; and Pele and Hiʻiaka: A Myth from Hawai‘i.

This Cemetery Pupu Theatre was researched by Mike Smola, script was written by Zach Thomas Woods, wardrobe by Peggy Krock and directed by William Haʻo.

The next Mission Houses program, 5:30 – 8 pm, Saturday, July 16, 2016, will be the ‘Aloha Ho‘oipoipo’ portion of Mission Houses ‘Na Mele Aloha’ series ($30 each in advance, or $35 at door.) (To be held at Mission Houses.)

This performance will explore romantic love through songs, mele ho‘oipoipo, both those which openly reveal the individuals in such a relationship and those songs which use kaona or hidden meanings to obscure the specific relationships.

Click HERE to make your reservation for 5:30 – 8 pm, Saturday, July 16, 2016,  ‘Na Mele Aloha’ series ‘Aloha Ho‘oipoipo’:

Check out the Mission Houses website for future programs and events, as well as the many other activities at the historic site on King and Kawaiahaʻo Streets. Click HERE.

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Mission Houses Museum - Cemetery Pupu Theatre - Muses of Hawaii
Mission Houses Museum – Cemetery Pupu Theatre – Muses of Hawaii
Johnny Noble (Portrayed by Zach Thomas Woods-Wayne Paakaula on Ukulele)
Johnny Noble (Portrayed by Zach Thomas Woods-Wayne Paakaula on Ukulele)
Ethel Damon (Portrayed by Alicia Rice)
Ethel Damon (Portrayed by Alicia Rice)
Thomas Thrum (Portrayed by Eli Foster)
Thomas Thrum (Portrayed by Eli Foster)
Emma Nakuina (Portrayed by Kahana Ho)
Emma Nakuina (Portrayed by Kahana Ho)
Nathaniel Emerson (Portrayed by Christopher Denton)
Nathaniel Emerson (Portrayed by Christopher Denton)

Filed Under: Prominent People Tagged With: Johnny Noble, Ethel Damon, Thomas Thrum, Emma Nakuina, Nathaniel Emerson, Hawaii, Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives, Cemetery Pupu Theatre

June 24, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kapiʻolani Home

“In fulfillment of the commands of His Majesty, and to carry out the views of my colleagues of the Board of Health and the community in the erection of a Home for leper girls, I now present to Your Majesty, as Lady Patroness of this benevolent institution, named after Your Majesty, the keys of this Home.” (Gibson, Dedication of Kapiʻolani Home, November 9, 1885)

“Queen Kapiʻolani took the keys in her hand and proceeded to the door leading into the refectory. She put a key, especially marked, into the door, unlocked it, and then, withdrawing the key, handed it to the Reverend Mother Superior, with the remark:”

“’I deliver these keys to you.’ The President of the Board of Health then said: ‘By command of His Majesty the King I declare the Home now open.’” (Dedication of Kapiʻolani Home, November 9, 1885)

Kapi‘olani had visited Kalaupapa in 1884 to learn how she could assist those who were diagnosed with leprosy and exiled there, and she raised the funds to build the Kapiʻolani Home for Girls. (KCC)

Queen Kapiʻolani, Father Damien de Veuster (now Saint Damien,) Dr Eduard Arning and Mother Marianne (now Saint Marianne) recognized the need for a home for the non-infected children of the leprosy patients.

On November 9, 1885, the healthy girls living in Kalawao moved into Kapiʻolani Home on the grounds of the sisters’ convent at the Kaka’ako Branch Hospital. (Hawaii Catholic Herald)

“It will accommodate fifty inmates, besides the matron, and will be under the supervision and control of the Sisters of Charity, of whom there are now seven, including the Mother Superior attached to the Convent of their order, which is within the enclosure of the Branch Hospital.”

“The Home is a two-story building, on the mauka side of the Branch Hospital, and separated from it by a high fence. The building is 70 feet by 50 feet, and is surrounded by open-railed verandas, 10 feet wide, which furnish a cool and sheltered place for play in all weather.”

“On the ground floor, which is approached by a wide flight of steps to the lower veranda, are two store rooms, an office, class room and refectory. The last two are spacious rooms, well lighted and ventilated, the height of the ceiling being 13 feet 1 inch.
A wide flight of stairs on the outside loads to the upper floor, on which are situate two large dormitories, two bath rooms and matron’s room.”

“The arrangement of these dormitories deserves mention. The one on the mauka or land side, which is the breeziest, from the prevailing wind, will be occupied by girls who have developed the disease; the other will be occupied by girls who are as yet free from it, but who, having been born of leper parents, may be reasonably suspected of having the disease latent in their blood.”

“There will be no communication between these rooms. Separate closets and baths have been provided for each class of inmates. In this way it is hoped to minimize the risk of contagion, by preventing the clean breathing the same atmosphere with the unclean at night.”

“During the daytime, when there is a free circulation of air, the risk of contagion is so slight that it need hardly be estimated. At the same time it should be stated that no bad case of leprosy will be admitted to the Home, but only such as gives hopes of yielding to cleanliness, wholesome food, moderate exercise and kind and scientific treatment.”

“A notice of this kind would be incomplete were no mention made of the Branch Leper Hospital contiguous to the Home, and the noble Christian work performed therein by the Sisters of Charity. The Branch Hospital was established in 1881, and as in the case of the Leper Settlement at Molokai, it was not well managed at the outset, nor indeed, until after the arrival of the first party of the Sisters two years ago precisely yesterday.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, November 9, 1885)

“I had the honor to address the Bishop of Olba a letter, dated January 4, 1883, in which I informed His Lordship that the care of the sick poor of this Kingdom had most earnestly enlisted the sympathies of Their Majesties the King and Queen and awakened the solicitude of the Government) that they appreciated the necessity for trained and faithful nurses, and felt that nowhere could such invaluable assistance be obtained so readily as among the ranks of those blessed Sisterhoods of Charity, who have, in various parts of the earth devoted themselves to the care of the sick”. (Address by Gibson, President of the Board of Health)

From 50 other religious communities in the United States, only Mother Marianne’s Order of Sisters agreed to come to Hawaii to care for people with Hansen’s Disease (known then as leprosy.)

The Sisters arrived in Hawaii on November 8, 1883, dedicating themselves to the care of the 200 lepers in Kaka‘ako Branch Hospital on Oahu. This hospital was built to accommodate 100 people, but housed more than 200 people. (Cathedral of Our lady of Peace)

Kapiʻolani Home was devoted to the care of non-leprous girls of leprous parents, not yet confirmed as lepers, and others suspected of the disease.

Under the care of the Franciscan Sisters, the government has provided a home for many little girls born of leper parents. It is exceedingly rare that a child inherits leprosy, and even where both parents are lepers, if the child be removed before it has become infected with the disease there is small danger of its developing leprosy.

These non-leprous children are generally taken from their parents when 2 years of age. Sometimes friends of the family provide for them, and in other cases they are taken to the home.

Girls, ranging from 2 to 20 years of age, who are not only given a good school education, but trained in such branches of domestic work as are necessary to fit them to become useful members of the community thereafter.

This home is for girls, and is insufficient to accommodate the present number of inmates comfortably. There is a necessity for a similar institution for boys and for enlarging the present capacity of the Kapiʻolani Home. (Hawaiian Commission, September 8, 1898) (A Boys Home was later built in Kalihi.)

After the hospital closed in 1888, the home was moved three times: first, to a more suitable new building adjacent to the Kalihi Receiving Station; second, to a temporary camp in Waiakamilo when a typhoid epidemic closed the previous home in 1900; finally, in 1912 to Kalihi where the patients’ children were housed until 1938. (Hawaii Catholic Herald)

Mother Marianne died in Kalaupapa on August 9, 1918. The Sisters of St. Francis continue their work in Kalaupapa with victims of Hansen’s Disease. No sister has ever contracted the disease. (Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace)

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Gibson_and_Mother_Marianne_Cope-Kakaako_Leper_Detention_Center
Gibson_and_Mother_Marianne_Cope-Kakaako_Leper_Detention_Center
Kapiolani Girls Home-1907
Kapiolani Girls Home-1907
Kapiolani Girls Home-new_dormitory-1907
Kapiolani Girls Home-new_dormitory-1907
Kapiolani Girls Home-Sisters_Residence-1907
Kapiolani Girls Home-Sisters_Residence-1907
Queen Kapiolani Statue
Queen Kapiolani Statue
Mother_Marianne_Cope_in_her_youth
Mother_Marianne_Cope_in_her_youth

Filed Under: Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings, Prominent People, General, Ali'i / Chiefs / Governance Tagged With: Hawaii, Oahu, Saint Marianne, Molokai, Kapiolani Home

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Images of Old Hawaiʻi

People, places, and events in Hawaiʻi’s past come alive through text and media in “Images of Old Hawaiʻi.” These posts are informal historic summaries presented for personal, non-commercial, and educational purposes.

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