Oahu | Page 15 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

May 30, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hula Pahu

“For many weeks in succession, the first sound that fell on the ear in the morning was the loud beating of the drum, summoning the dancers to assemble. … Day after day, several hours in the day, the noisy hula – drumming, singing, and dancing in the open air, constituted the great attraction …” (Hiram Bingham)

The Hawaiian term ‘Pahu’ translates into ’drum’, ‘Niu’ being the Hawaiian word for ‘coconut’. The traditional pahu hula (hula drum) was carved from coconut stumps and covered with sharkskin (although possibly other types of native wood (koa, breadfruit, etc.) may have been used.)

The pahu is carved out of a single piece of wood; a bowl-like septum separates the sound chamber from the base or carved arches and a sharkskin membrane is lashed with sennit to the base.

The original material used for the Pahu’s waha (head) was either shark or ray skin. Heiau Pahu tended to be originally made with a waha of ray skin, while non-religious Pahu often used sharkskin. (Kalikiano)

Pahu were made with great care. In pre-European times (pre-1778) each part of the drum’s body, especially the sennit, ‘aha, used to lash the sharkskin to the base, required special prayers which were chanted during the processes of making the sennit and lashing the skin to the drum.

The power of the prayers became entrapped in the lashing, the wood, the skin and remained with the drum always. The rows of inverted arches carved out of the base, called hoaka, are visually symbolic of outstretched hands supporting joined human figures overhead and are poetically symbolic of the shadows of gods (hoaka means to cast a shadow.) (Smithsonian)

“Their wooden drum, with one sharkskin head, is beaten by the fingers of the musician, sitting cross-legged beside it as the uncovered end stands on the ground.” (Hiram Bingham)

Laʻa is generally credited for introducing the drum to Hawaiʻi. Laʻamaikahiki (Laʻa-from-Kahiki) brought the first sharkskin pahu to Hawaiʻi from Kahiki (Tahiti,) “sounding over the oceans” sometime around AD 1250.

On nearing the land he waked the echoes with the stirring tones of his drum, which so astonished the people that they followed him from point to point along the coast and heaped favors upon him whenever he came ashore.

Laʻa was an enthusiastic patron of the hula and is said to have made a tour of the islands, in which he instructed the natives in new forms of the dance. (Emerson)

The shorter variety of Pahu (Pahu Hula) was used to beat time in Hula dances and to accompany chanting mele. It was made to be played by a standing person (always a priest, Kahuna, or Chief), whereas the Hula Pahu was made to more suitably accommodate a seated or kneeling individual.

The sounds of the pahu are referred to as leo (voice) and the drum head is referred to as waha (mouth.) During state rituals in the large open-air heiau, the pahu was a receptacle for a god who spoke through the ‘voice’ of the drum.

There is reason to believe that the original use of the pahu was in connection with the services of the temple, and that its adaptation to the hālau was simply transference from one to another religious use.

Music, particularly drumming, was traditionally important in Hawaiian ritual. A drum would have been played as part of hula – a larger version was used in temples. The seated musician normally played the pahu with one hand and a smaller drum, sometimes tied to the knee, with the other. (British Museum)

Hawaiian musical traditions are essentially vocal. Percussive musical instruments are never played alone, but always to accompany chanting and dancing.

The pahu is an instrument of power and sacredness that exemplifies traditions of ritual music and dance that are steeped in time. The drum is both a sound producer and a symbol. Its music represents the fundamental principles of Hawaiian perceptions of time and timing in traditional music.

Pahu were given proper names and passed down from generation to generation as objects of mana (power) and kapu (sacredness) producing sounds that carried the knowledge of generations of aliʻi and kahuna (specialists, including priests.) (Smithsonian)

Hula is a form of cultural expression of the utmost complexity, reaching back through the centuries to a time in the islands when history was recorded entirely by story and song, and passed along to succeeding generations by skilled individuals.

Since the essence of modern Hawaiian Hula is a medium of expression for communicating thoughts, stories and feelings that are for the most part translated by patterns of bodily motion in which not just the arms and hands, but the entire body, act as story telling devices. (Kalikiano)

Hula combines dance and chant or song to tell stories, recount past events and provide entertainment for its audience. With a clear link between dancer’s actions and the chant or song, the dancer uses rhythmic lower body movements, mimetic or depictive hand gestures and facial expression, as part of this performance. (ksbe-edu)

“The hula was a religious service, in which poetry, music, pantomime, and the dance lent themselves, under the forms of dramatic art, to the refreshment of men’s minds. Its view of life was idyllic, and it gave itself to the celebration of those mythical times when gods and goddesses moved on the earth as men and women and when men and women were as gods.”

“(W)hen it comes to the hula and the whole train of feelings and sentiments that made their entrances and exits in the hālau (the hall of the hula) one perceives that in this he has found the door to the heart of the people.” (Emerson, son of Missionaries)

In describing a hula danced before Keōpūolani and her daughter Nāhiʻenaʻena, in Lāhainā in 1823, Missionary CS Stewart wrote: “The motions of the dance were slow and graceful, and, in this instance, free from indelicacy of action; and the song, or rather recitative, accompanied by much gesticulation, was dignified and harmonious in its numbers.”

”The theme of the whole, was the character and praises of the queen and princess, who were compared to everything sublime in nature, exalted as gods.” (Missionary Stewart)

“This was intended, in part at least, as an honor and gratification to the king, especially at Honolulu, at his expected reception there, on his removal from Kailua. Apparently, not all hula was viewed as bad or indecent.”

“In the hula, the dancers are often fantastically decorated with figured or colored kapa, green leaves, fresh flowers, braided hair, and sometimes with a gaiter on the ancle, set with hundreds of dog’s teeth, so as to be considerably heavy, and to rattle against each other in the motion of the feet.” (Hiram Bingham)

May 2, 2024 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Bellows

Waimanalo Military Reservation was created in 1917 by Presidential Executive Order, and later renamed to Bellows Field in 1933 (named after Lieutenant Franklin Barney Bellows, a war hero who was killed in action during World War I while on a reconnaissance flight near St. Mihiel, France, on September 13, 1918.)

The land was leased from Waimanalo Sugar Plantation. It was used as the bivouac area and a target practice area by the Coastal Artillery, which strung a line of 90-mm guns along the beach. During the 1930s, Bellows was used as a bombing and gunnery range by aircraft from Luke (Ford Island,) Wheeler and Hickam Fields.

Back then, the field was nothing but overgrowth of sugar cane and guava. The only clearings were for training areas and tents where the men slept. It was a training area for the infantry, coast artillery and Air Corps. There was a wooden traffic control tower and a single asphalt runway, 983-feet long and 75-feet wide.

Bellows Field was used for training both air and ground forces. During the mid-1930s the Air Corps chiefly used this area for a strafing and bombing practice site. Those operations extended into 1938, when the total Air Corps personnel on duty only consisted of five to ten men supplied from Wheeler Field.

Bellows was a sub-post of Wheeler Field until July 22, 1941 when it became a separate permanent military post under the jurisdiction of the Commanding General, Hawaiian Department. Overnight, an accelerated construction program began and Bellows began to grow. Two-story wooden barracks and a new and larger runway started filling the landscape.

Bellows was among those installations attacked by the Japanese during the Pearl Harbor attack. The 44th Pursuit Squadron had 12 P-40’s located at Bellows on December 7th, 1941. Unfortunately the planes had been flown the day before the attack and the aircraft guns had been removed for cleaning. (Trojan)

Two military members were killed (Lt. Hans Christenson and Lt. George Whiteman) and six wounded at Bellows. They included three pilots of the 44th Pursuit Squadron who were at Bellows for gunnery training and attempted to take off in their P-40s. One of the pilots had to swim to shore when his badly damaged aircraft crashed into the ocean.

Also swimming ashore the next day was the commander of a Japanese two-man midget submarine which grounded on the reef off of Bellows. Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki, captured by Cpt. David Akui and Lt. Paul S. Plybon, was the first US prisoner of war taken in WW II. His companion, Petty Officer Second Class Kiyoshi Inagaki, died and his remains later washed up on the shore. (hawaii-gov)

With the outbreak of war, Bellows was transformed almost overnight into an important facility where aircraft were prepared for their duty in the Pacific Theater. Hundreds of men and aircraft flowed through Bellows requiring more runways and facilities.

Five runways, the longest 6,290-feet, were in two different airfields, connected by a taxiway – they were identified as “Bellows Field (Army)” to the south and “Bellows Field Bombing Range (Emergency)” to the north.

Later (1955,) the north Bellows airfield was “closed” and the south field was labeled simply as “Bellows,” without any kind of military designation. The field was also described as “Not attended.”

The south Bellows airfield may have been used for some time during the 1950s as a civilian airfield of some type. The runways at Bellows were eventually closed in 1958 and the base was used for other purposes.

In 1960, the U.S. Army built two Nike-Hercules anti-aircraft missile sites at Bellows, which were operated full-time by the Hawaiʻi Army National Guard for the aerial defense of Hawaii until inactivated in 1970. The communications transmitter facility replaced the Kipapa area transmitter and receiver sites. The Army National Guard continued at Bellows until 1995.

Later, Bellows was operated and maintained by members of the 15th Communications Squadron. Its transmitters were the principal ground-to-air link with aircraft (particularly military aircraft) flying to and from Hawaiʻi; and they provided communications for Presidential flights and others carrying high-level government officials. (The facility was decommissioned in the 1980s or 1990s.)

This communications network was one of the reasons the runways at Bellows went out of use; an antenna was located right in one of the runways. In addition, a large communication building was constructed right in the middle of the crossed runways.

The Bellows property was renamed Bellows Air Force Station (AFS) in 1968. In 1970 the US Air Force offered part of Bellows to the State of Hawaiʻi for use as a general aviation airport, but opposition by the nearby Waimanalo community was so strong that the state had to decline.

In 1999, the Marine Corps acquired about 1,050-acres for the Marine Corps Training Area Bellows (MCTAB;) it’s now part of Marine Corps Base Hawaiʻi, headquartered in Kāneʻohe Bay. MCTAB adds significant training capabilities and maneuver space for non-live fire military training activities.

The Marines and other services use the training areas to conduct amphibious, helicopter and motorized exercises in conjunction with troop land maneuver training. It is currently the only place in Hawaiʻi where amphibious landings can transition directly into maneuver training areas for realistic military training.

The Air Force’s property at Bellows is now limited to the recreational facilities. The Bellows Recreation Center is composed of 102 beach cottages, a small exchange & a beach club. Bellows is still depicted as an abandoned airfield on recent Sectional Charts.

The facility also serves as all-service beach-front recreational area for active-duty and retired military personnel, civilian employees of the Department of Defense, dependents and guests.

On most weekends and holidays, the Marines continue a practice started by the Air Force to open the Bellows Beach training area to the general public, in cooperation with the City and County of Honolulu. (Lots of information here from hawaii-gov and Trojan.)

April 30, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kamokuʻakulikuli

Coral doesn’t grow in fresh water. So, where a stream enters a coastal area, there is typically no coral growth at that point – and, as the freshwater runs out into the ocean, a coral-less channel is created.

In its natural state, thanks to Nuʻuanu Stream, Honolulu Harbor originally was a deep embayment formed by the outflow of Nuʻuanu Stream creating an opening in the shallow coral reef along the south shore of Oʻahu.

Honolulu Harbor (it was earlier known as Kuloloia) was entered by the first foreigner, Captain William Brown of the English ship Butterworth, in 1794.

They called the harbor “Fair Haven” which may be a rough translation of the Hawaiian name Honolulu (it was also sometimes called Brown’s Harbor.) The name Honolulu (meaning “sheltered bay” – with numerous variations in spelling) soon came into use.

More sailors came. Captain William Sumner arrived in the Islands in 1807. Arriving first at Kaua‘i, Sumner jumped-ship and lived amongst the Hawaiians there. Kaumuali‘i was the king of Kaua‘i at the time, and when he saw Sumner, he was entranced by this youth, and took him as a “keiki hoʻokama” (adopted him.)

In the Islands, Kamehameha I, who had been living at Waikiki, moved his Royal Residence to Pākākā at Honolulu Harbor in 1809. Sumner served as one of the captains on ships in this fleet.

Some foreigners, like Sumner who sailed ships for Kamehameha, Liholiho (Kamehameha II) and Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III,) were awarded land grants for their services.

In 1819, Kamehameha I gave land to Sumner for services rendered. This site was at the corner of today’s Hotel and Punchbowl Streets (near where the present Barracks are at ʻIolani Palace.)

Sumner was also awarded “… a fishery of the 647-Diamond Head acres of the reef lying between the Kalihi and Honolulu Harbor Channels. The area carried the Hawaiian name of Kaholaloa (Koholaloa, Kahololoa, Kaholoa.) The Ewa portion of this reef was designated Mokauea.”

Hawai‘i’s whaling era began in 1819 when two New England ships, the Balena out of New Bedford, and the Equator, out of Nantucket, became the first whaling ships to arrive in the Hawaiian Islands.

Rich whaling waters were discovered near Japan and soon hundreds of ships headed for the area. The central location of the Hawaiian Islands between America and Japan brought many whaling ships to the Islands.

With increased whalers to the Islands, so did disease. A law was passed noting, “All vessels having had contagious diseases on board … on arrival at Sandwich Islands, or at any port hereof, shall be entirely at the direction of the Board of Health … all vessels quarantined … shall keep constantly flying, during the day, a yellow flag at the main top.” (Quarantine Laws, May 29, 1839)

The first efforts to deepen Honolulu Harbor were made in the 1840s. The idea to use the dredged material, composed of sand and crushed coral, to fill in low-lying lands was quickly adopted. Some of the material was deposited on the fringing reef.

“In the year 1849 … the land of Kahololoa, was confirmed to William Sumner by Land Commission Award No, 153 … The title to these lands passed to JI Dowsett and John K Sumner, and from them to the Dowsett Company, Limited, and the Oahu Railway & Land Company.”

In 1872, the small island off Iwilei – “Kamokuʻakulikuli” – became the site of a quarantine station used to handle the influx of immigrant laborers drawn to the islands’ developing sugar plantations. The site is described as “little more than a raised platform of sand and pilings to house the station, with walkways leading to the harbor edge wharf, where a concrete sea wall had been constructed” and as “a low, swampy area on a reef in the harbor”.

Improvements were made. “Looking seaward from the prison I noticed a building which had been erected upon the reef, and on enquiry found it to be a Quarantine Station. … (it was) used occasionally as a temporary accommodation for immigrants.”

Then, the arrival “of a vessel bringing twenty-five Chinese passengers, among whose crew small-pox had broken out, demonstrated the foresight of the Government in erecting this commodious building…” (Bowser, 1880-1881; Maly)

More came. “Over seven hundred Chinese immigrants, mostly men, who came here on the steamer Septima on the 13th of last month, were placed in quarantine on their arrival, on account of the existence of small pox among them. For nine days they were detained on board of the ship in the harbor, until the quarters were prepared for them on the quarantine island.”

“Those ill with small-pox were removed from among the others as soon as the disease appeared, and finally when about twenty days had passed since the last case had been removed the Board of Health allowed them to go as fast as they found employment; or as they found responsible persons who would become responsible to the Board of Immigration that they would not become vagrants or a charge on the community for their support.” (Hawaiian Gazette, March 23, 1881)

By 1888, Kamokuʻākulikuli Island had been expanded and was known as “Quarantine Island.” If vessels arrived at the harbor after 15 days at sea and contagious disease was aboard, quarantine and disinfecting procedures were required at Quarantine Island. (Cultural Surveys)

“Upon annexation of the islands the United States took possession of Quarantine Island in the belief that the title to that land had been vested in the Hawaiian government. (Dowsett and OR&L filed suit.)”

In a compromise, “in 1902 the (Oʻahu Railway & Land Company) and the Dowsett Company turned over to the federal government 550-acres of what is now Quarantine Island and adjacent ground, and for themselves kept only 82-acres. (They also retained wharfage privileges and rights to access the channel/harbor.)” (Honolulu Star Bulleting, June 16, 1914)

Quarantine Island became the largest United States quarantine station of the period, accommodating 2,255-individuals. This facility included two hospitals and a crematorium. (Cultural Surveys)

Dredged materials from improvements to Honolulu harbor had enlarged Quarantine Island again and by 1906 the island was encircled by a seawall and was 38-acres. By 1908 the Quarantine Station consisted of Quarantine Island and the reclaimed land of the Quarantine wharf (with a causeway connecting the two.)

On February 15, 1910, Honolulu Harbor Light station was built and the beacon went into service. Soon, with added filling and subsequent connection of the two emergent islands on the reef, the resulting single island took the name Sand Island.

In 1916, Sand Island Military Reservation was established on the reclaimed land of the quarantine station. Subsequent episodes of harbor improvements resulted in enlarging the island and, by 1925 the reef around Sand Island had been removed and the island was completely surrounded by water. (Dye)

Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor and declaration of martial law on December 7, 1941, military authorities immediately rounded up Japanese and placed them in internment camps. Those arrested on Oʻahu were initially crowded into the Honolulu Immigration Station pending a hearing or a short boat ride to Sand Island.

In May 1942, military authorities turned the quarantine station into the Sand Island Detention Center, complete with 10-foot-tall fences. Other internment facilities were constructed in the Islands and on the continent. By the end of the war, an estimated 1,440-people were detained or interned in Hawai’i at one of five locations on O’ahu, the Big Island, Maui and Kaua’i.

During the early-1940s, Sand Island became the headquarters of the Army Port and Service Command and in the early 1940s the island was further enlarged with fill materials from the dredging of the seaplane runway. (Dye)

In 1959, the Department of the Army transferred Sand Island to the Territory of Hawaiʻi, and in 1963 ownership was transferred to the State of Hawaiʻi. (Star Bulletin, March 12, 1991) The island was once home to the Jaycee’s 50th State Fair.

Initial vehicular access was via a causeway; in April 1962, the Army Corps of Engineers completed the Lt John R Slattery Bridge (Slattery was the first Army Corps of Engineers Honolulu District Engineer in 1905.) The two-lane bascule bridge (draw bridge) originally could be raised and lowered to allow boat traffic to pass underneath.

In the late-1980s, though, the state permanently sealed the metal bridge and built a new concrete bridge alongside, creating four lanes to accommodate the growing commercial traffic on and off the island.

Several other names have been associated with Sand Island. Lot Kamehameha (Kamehameha V) gave the name Mauliola to the island in reference to the island’s use as a quarantine station. (Star Bulletin, April 28, 1969) Older names for the island were Kamokuʻākulikuli or Kahaka‘aulana. Rainbow Island and ʻĀnuenue were names used in the 1970s. (Dye)

April 20, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kokokahi

Dr Theodore Richards’ first position in Hawaiʻi was teacher of the first class to graduate from the Kamehameha Schools and also as an instructor of music and athletic coach.

He served as principal of the Kamehameha Schools for five years (replacing William Oleson, Kamehameha’s 1st principal.) Richards married Mary C Atherton in Honolulu, June 29, 1892. They had four children, Ruth (Mrs Frank E Midkiff,) Joseph Atherton, Herbert M and Mary Theodora Richards.

In 1927, Richards envisioned a community center and camp ground where people of all races could come together as “one blood” or “kokokahi”.

Initially, the Richards’ camp started on Moku O Loʻe (Coconut Island.) Chris Holmes, Fleishman Yeast heir, offered to buy the Bishop Estate lease from the camp and to take over the island as a private residence.

With the money from selling the lease, Richards established a multi-racial community by setting out houselots for weekend cabins across the Bay; it had mountains for hiking and the bay for swimming and the land between for the camp itself. (Taylor)

He established a garden there (now the independent Friendship Garden;) later, the Dudley Talbott Trail was added (about half-mile loop through lower Kokokahi Valley mauka of Kāneʻohe Bay Drive. )

Camp Halekipa was established and later merged with Theodore Richards’ combined conference, camp and vacation home area for all Christians, and called Kokokahi as part of the YWCA.

In a time when it was the custom for communities to be segregated by race, Kokokahi was an unprecedented effort to breakdown racial barriers. The YWCA national commitment to eliminating racism is in close harmony with Dr Richard’s.

The new camp offered conferences and camp outings for such diverse organizations as church groups, the University of Hawaiʻi sororities, the Salvation Army and Home Demonstration Clubs.

In 1936, the Juliette Atherton Trust built Atherton Hall on the YWCA property. It overlooks Kāneʻohe Bay, with floor to ceiling glass doors and a lanai that wraps around the building.

Today, Atherton Hall is used for group retreats or meetings, as well as a site for weddings; it has a full catering kitchen. Hale Nanea Lodge and nearby island-style cottages provide sleeping quarters for overflow.

Hale Nanea Lodge is a modern style lodge that can accommodate up to 60-guests in five dorm style rooms (with 12-camp-style single bunk beds per room.) Hale Nanea is equipped with its own kitchen, meeting space and men’s and women’s restrooms.

Originally built in 1933, nearby cottages have camp-style single beds and bunk beds and share a common area restroom with showers. The cottages have electricity and an outdoor picnic area with barbeque grills and sink.

During WWII, Kokokahi was used as a rest camp by the military. In 1968, renovations were begun to include a physical education building for indoor classes, an arts and crafts facility, a large multipurpose building and a marina.

Fully renovated in 2001, Midkiff Gymnasium is a modern multi-purpose gym. The unique sliding doors create an open air area, allowing ocean and mountain views. The gym has a sports floor covering and a college regulation size basketball court.

Today, Kokokahi offers YWCA members a place to participate in cultural, educational and recreational activities together.

Located on Kāne’ohe Bay, member families have access to over 11-acres of waterfront property which includes a full-size gymnasium, a functional kitchen and dining area, a pool with locker rooms, overnight cabins and multiple classrooms and meeting spaces. (Information here is from YWCA, Kokokahi.)

April 3, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Mabel Leilani Smyth

Pālama, a sleepy neighborhood of neat little cottages and taro patches, was home to mostly working-class Hawaiian families; on June 1, 1896, a chapel was built and presented to Central Union Church.

Social worker James Arthur Rath, Sr and his wife, Ragna Helsher Rath, turned Pālama Chapel into Pālama Settlement (in September 1906,) a chartered, independent, non-sectarian organization.

The Raths established a day-camp for children with tuberculosis, a pure milk depot, a day nursery, a night school, low-rent housing and the Territory’s first public nursing department.

Public health nursing was started in Hawaiʻi by the Free Kindergarten and Children’s Aid Association in 1897, when Mrs. Alice (Haviland) Thompson, nurse at Kamehameha School, volunteered her services to work in the Kindergartens in Honolulu.

In 1900, as Honolulu health officials attempted to rid the nearby Chinatown area of bubonic plague, fire destroyed a four-block section. The Pālama chapel’s staff located housing for many of the displaced and took care of the injured and children. It also ministered to the needs of immigrants who moved into the Pālama area soon after arriving in the Islands.

In 1908 the College Club (a voluntary civic association) became interested in the tuberculosis problem and employed a nurse to do tuberculosis work in the City of Honolulu. Because it was thought that the nurse would have easier access to the district homes, she was given a Board of Health badge.

When the Tuberculosis Bureau was established in the Board of Health in 1910, the College Club nurse worked under the direction and supervision of that bureau until the latter part of 1910, when Pālama Settlement established itself as the centralized organization for public health nursing activities in Honolulu.

Shortly after, Pālama assumed the direction and supervision of all nurses and nursing activities in the city, including the two nurses employed in the Board of Health to do tuberculosis nursing.

By 1910, nine nurses were employed in the city: two by the Legislature, or Board of Health, one by the College Club, one by the Chinese Consul, one by the United Chinese Society, and four by Pālama Settlement. (Smyth; The Friend, September 1, 1932)

Mabel Smyth, sometimes referenced as “Hawaiʻi’s Florence Nightingale” was Hawaiʻi’s first native Hawaiian public health nurse in the territory of Hawaii.

The daughter of a part-Hawaiian mother, Julia Goo Smyth (1867-1948,) and an Irish Ship Captain father, Halford Hamill Smyth (1851-1907,) Mabel was born in 1882 in Kona (some say she was born in Honolulu.) Halford Smyth died in 1907 leaving his wife with 5 children ranging in age from 8 to 16 (Mabel, the second oldest, was 15 at the time.) (Connerton)

The family then moved to Honolulu where Smyth was involved with the Pālama Settlement, and she worked as a helper in the home of Pālama Head Worker, James Rath.

In 1912 Smyth traveled to the mainland with the Rath family, and in Springfield, MA she left them to begin her nursing training at the Springfield Hospital Training School. (Connerton)

Smyth graduated from the Springfield Hospital training school in 1914, and returned to Hawaiʻi to begin work at the Pālama settlement in 1915.

When she applied for her position on the Pālama nursing service she explained her interest in district health nursing “One can do more good for humanity by working among the people district nurses do, and I naturally like to work among that class of people.”

In 1917 when the Board of Nursing established a licensure requirement – Smyth was #52 granted on August 30, 1917.

When Smyth took over as Pālama’s head nurse in 1918 there were seven Pālama dispensaries in the city, each with a nurse assigned to that district. Nurses spent about 45-minutes of their day in the office, and the rest was divided between school visits, home visits and dispensary hours. (Connerton)

Smythe went on to lead two of the most influential public health nursing services in the territory. She was a charter member of the Hawaiʻi Nursing Association (called the Honolulu Nurses’ Club). She joined the Honolulu chapter of the American Red Cross, and she served on the Hawaiʻi Board of Nursing.

In 1923, by act of the Legislature, the title of all nurses employed by the Board of Health, who were known as tuberculosis or school nurse, was changed to “public health nurse.” (Smyth; The Friend, September 1, 1932)

What is public health nursing? “Public health nursing is an organized community service rendered by graduate nurses to the individual, family and community. This service includes the interpretation for the correction of defects, prevention of disease and the promotion of health, and may include skilled care for the sick in their homes.”

“Our service is divided into four distinct divisions, namely, maternity, health supervision, morbidity (which includes non-communicable and communicable diseases) and social service.” (Smyth; The Friend, September 1, 1932)

In 1926, Smyth joined with other public health nurses to initiate the University of Hawaiʻi course on public health nursing. This program was vital for local nurses whose only other option for public health training was to go to the mainland to study. (Connerton)

When the Bureau of maternal and Child Health was organized in 1926, the nurse services expanded island wide. Miss Claira Figely was the first supervisor of nurses, followed by Mabel Smyth who was Director of the Bureau of Maternal and Infant Hygiene.

Hawaiʻi was the first, and at times the only, US Territory or State that required formal Public Health training for employment as Public Health nurse. (Tabrah)

In 1936 Smyth was scheduled for a small surgery. She prepared her staff for a planned absence, but she never returned. Smyth died at age 43, after 21 years of service to the public health community of Hawaii.

Smyth was widely mourned in the territory, and after her death a committee formed to establish a memorial to the “Hawaiian Florence Nightingale.” Over $110,000 raised for her memorial building, with over 4,000-people making contributions.

On January 4 1941, the CW Dickey-designed ‘Mabel Smyth Memorial Building’ was dedicated on the Queens Hospital grounds at the corner of Punchbowl and Beretania Streets in Honolulu. The new building was the headquarters for Hawaii’s professional nursing and medical organizations.

In 1991, ownership of the building and property passed from the Queen’s Medical Center to the State of Hawaiʻi, in an exchange for nearby undeveloped land (Miller Street Triangle) that was needed by the hospital expansion.

In 1998, DLNR sold the building and adjacent grounds at a public auction for $5 million to the Queen Emma Foundation. (PBN) Queen’s later renamed it ‘Queen’s Conference Center’ and relegated the Smyth name to the ‘Mabel Smyth Auditorium.’