Queen Emma | Page 8 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

May 18, 2015 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Thomas Charles Byde Rooke

Thomas Charles Byde Rooke was born to Thomas and Sarah Rooke on May 18, 1806, in Bengeo, Hertford, England. He studied to be a Doctor at a branch of Christ’s College Hospital in Hertford and had studied in London where he graduated from the Royal College of Surgeons in 1826.

He first landed in the Islands at Lahaina in 1829. After another season’s cruise his ship put in at Honolulu. Here Dr. Rooke was asked to remain and practice medicine, and, with the consent of his Captain, he agreed.

That year, Rooke married Grace Kamaikui, the second daughter of John Young, Kamehameha’s advisor (and “in his most perfect confidence”.) Grace was widow of Keʻeaumoku (Queen Regent Kaʻahumanu’s younger brother.)

The Rookes were apparently unable to have children of their own; when Grace’s sister, Fanny, had a child, Emma, she was hanai (a traditional custom of adoption) to the Rookes.

Emma’s formal education began at age five at the Chiefs’ Children’s School. She grew up speaking both Hawaiian and English, the latter “with a perfect English accent.”

At age 13, when the school closed in 1849, Rooke hired Sarah Rhodes von Pfister, an English governess, to tutor Emma for the next four years, but he also played an active role in her education. Emma learned a great deal about the outside world from her scholarly father, who assembled the finest library in Honolulu for her benefit.

At 20, on June 19, 1856, Emma married Alexander Liholiho, who a year earlier had assumed the throne as Kamehameha IV; she became Queen Emma. The couple had known each other since childhood.

Dr Rooke was one of the pioneers in the cultivation of coffee and was the charter member of the Royal Hawaiian Agricultural Society when it was organized in 1850, serving on the coffee committee.

Rooke had his office and dispensary in his home (“Rooke House” on the makai/Waikiki corner of Beretania Street and Nuʻuanu Avenue.) Rooke House was “like an old-fashioned New England house externally, but with two deep verandahs, and the entrance is on the upper one.”

“The lower floor seemed given up to attendants and offices, and a native woman was ironing clothes under a tree. Upstairs, the house is like a tasteful, English country-house, with a pleasant English look … the most English-looking house I have seen since I left home, except Bishopscourt at Melbourne.” (Bird)

He was also physician to the Court, friend and advisor to the royal family, and became a naturalized citizen. In 1844 he is listed as Port Physician, and in December, 1850, he was appointed to the first Board of Health and served as its chairman. Rooke served twice as a member of the House of Representatives, representing the Honolulu district.

He was “elegantly dressed, rubicund, affable, and redolent of delicious odors that I afterwards learned to recognize as indicative of acquaintance with the choicest brands of rare old wine. The cordiality of his manners placed me at ease”. (Lyman)

Dr Rooke was one of the ten Honolulu physicians who were signers of the charter of incorporation of the Hawaiian Medical Society on May 19, 1856.

Rooke also taught Emma by example. Not only did he provide medical care to the poor, he also served as physician at the Hospital for British Seamen, which was established in Pauoa Valley in 1846

Rooke foreshadowed the establishment of The Queen’s Hospital with his pleas in The Polynesian for the establishment of such an institution.

After living in the Islands for nearly 30-years, Dr Rooke died in November 28, 1858, at Kailua-Kona, Hawaiʻi, at the age of 52. He was buried in the Wyllie tomb, or Wyllie crypt, at Mauna Ala, along with other members of Emma’s family.

Although he did not live to see the opening of the Queen’s Hospital in 1860, it was he who kindled the spark which brought it into being.

“(W)e have lost not only the Senior Member of our Profession here, whose labors among this people and community during his long residence on these islands, have secured for him an enduring place in the memory of the Hawaiian Nation;”

“(B)ut, also, a brother, whose strict sense of professional propriety in his relations to as, as well as to those entrusted to his care, not less than his uniform kindness and urbanity of manners, have won for him our lasting esteem and respect.” (Hawaiian Medical Society; Polynesian, December 16, 1858) (Lots of information here is from Queen’s Medical Center and Kelley)

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Wyllie Tomb-Thomas_Rooke

May 14, 2015 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Seacole and the Queen

Mary Jane Grant was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1805. Her father was a Scottish soldier and her mother was Jamaican. Mary learned nursing skills from her mother, who kept a boarding house for invalid soldiers.

“When I was about twelve years old I was more frequently at my mother’s house, and used to assist her in her duties; very often sharing with her the task of attending upon invalid officers or their wives, who came to her house from the adjacent camp at Up-Park, or the military station at Newcastle.” (Seacole)

Although technically ‘free,’ being of mixed race, Mary and her family had few civil rights – they could not vote, hold public office or enter the professions. (BBC)

“I nursed my old indulgent patroness in her last long illness. After she died, in my arms, I went to my mother’s house, where I stayed, making myself useful in a variety of ways, and learning a great deal of Creole medicinal art”. (Seacole)

In 1836, “until (she) couldn’t find courage to say ‘no’ to a certain arrangement timidly proposed,” Mary married Edwin Horatio Hamilton Seacole (the godson of Admiral Horatio Nelson;) but the marriage was short-lived as he died in 1844. (BBC)

“In the year 1850, the cholera swept over the island of Jamaica with terrible force. … they sent some clothes on shore to be washed, and poor Dolly Johnson, the washerwoman, whom we all knew, sickened and died of the terrible disease.”

“While the cholera raged, I had but too many opportunities of watching its nature, and from a Dr. B—, who was then lodging in my house, received many hints as to its treatment which I afterwards found invaluable.” (Seacole)

She travelled to Cruses, Panama to see her brother. A family friend developed cholera; there, she diagnosed it and gave medicine from her medicine chest (“I never travel anywhere without it.”)

“I went hastily to the patient, and at once adopted the remedies I considered fit. It was a very obstinate case, but by dint of mustard emetics, warm fomentations, mustard plasters on the stomach and the back, and calomel, at first in large then in gradually smaller doses, I succeeded in saving my first cholera patient in Cruces.”

War had been declared against Russia and following her trip to Panama, Mary had a pressing desire to go to Crimea to nurse the British soldiers whom she had grown both accustomed to and fond of when she had nursed them in Jamaica.

She tried to offer her services in London in the autumn of 1854; following several rejections, she traveled to the Crimea (on the northern coast of the Black Sea in the Ukraine) and opened the British Hotel and store at Balaclava and worked tirelessly during the year she spent there.

During an outbreak of cholera, Mary’s services were again in great demand. This time, she succumbed to the illness herself but made a full recovery. (Gabriel) She also saved others.

“I have seen her go down, under fire, with her little store of creature comforts for our wounded men; and a more tender or skilful hand about a wound or broken limb could not be found among our best surgeons.”

“I saw her at the assault on the Redan, at the Tchernay, at the fall of Sebastopol, laden, not with plunder, good old soul! but with wine, bandages, and food for the wounded or the prisoners.” (Russell, 1857; British Journal of Healthcare Assistants)

“She not only, from the knowledge she acquired in the West Indies, was enabled to administer appropriate remedies for their ailments, but, what was of as much or more importance, she charitably furnished them with proper nourishment …”

“… which they had no means of obtaining except in hospital, and most of that class had an objection to go into hospital.” (Sir John Hall, Inspector-General of Hospitals, 1856; British Journal)

“I trust that England will not forget one who nursed the sick, who sought out her wounded to aid and succor them, and who performed the last offices for some of her illustrious dead.” (Sir William Howard Russell, 1857)

Following the war in Crimea, Mary Seacole returned to England destitute and in poor health; however, her reputation after the Crimean War rivalled Florence Nightingale’s. She lived in London, as well as in Jamaica.

Then, on June 24th 1865, Mary Seacole made a Hawaiʻi connection. It turns out Queen Emma made a brief stopover in Kingston on her way to London.

Queen Emma was welcomed with a royal gun salute and was met by an honor guard of the 1st West India Regiment. As she landed, she graciously acknowledged the cheers of the many citizens of Kingston who had gathered to greet her. One of the citizens of Kingston who greeted the Queen was Mary Seacole.

In the words of the reporter of the Colonial Standard, “A carriage was in attendance at the wharf to receive Her Majesty, as soon as she entered the carriage Mrs Seacole requested the honour of placing around Her Majesty a magnificent cloak that had been presented to her by the Sultan, which she accepted, thanked Mrs Seacole and shook hands with her”. (Lumsden)

The two women shared a dedication to health care, Mary Seacole in the battles in the Crimea and Queen Emma through the practice of her father (an English physician) that eventually led to the formation of the Queen’s Hospital (named in her honor.)

Queen Emma decided to visit England and the British Government provided the ships to transport her and her party. It was on this voyage that she stopped at Kingston. In England she stayed at Windsor with Queen Victoria, and visited hospitals and educational establishments. (Lumsden)

The last 25 years of Mary Seacole’s life were spent in relative obscurity; she died in London on May 14, 1881 and is buried in St Mary’s Roman Catholic cemetery, Kensal Green, London. Queen Emma died four years later and is buried at Mauna Ala, Honolulu.

(Seacole was voted Greatest Black Briton in 2004. “As a black Jamaican woman in the 19th century, Mary Seacole stood up against the discrimination and prejudices she encountered. Against all odds, Mary had an unshakeable belief in the power of nursing to make a difference.” (BBC))

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Mary_Jane_Seacole

Mary Seacole

Mary_Seacole_Drawing

Sculpture of Mary Seacole

Mary Seacole portrait

Sketch of Mary Seacole by Crimean war artist William Simpson (1823–1899), c. 1855

Mother Seacole`s bust at Getty museum

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Sketch of Mary Seacole’s British Hotel in Crimea, by Lady Alicia Blackwood (1818–1913)

Map illustrating Mary Seacole’s involvement in the Crimean War

Mary_Seacole_Home_London_Plaque

Artist rendition of proposed Mary Seacole Statue

Mary Seacole gravestone

June 13, 2012 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hānaiakamalama – Queen Emma Summer Palace

Hānaiakamalama (Lit., the foster child of the light (or moon,)) now known as the Queen Emma Summer Palace, was the “mountain” home of Queen Emma, wife of Kamehameha IV.

The house was originally constructed by John George Lewis in 1848. John Young II bought it in 1850 and named the home “Hānaiakamalama.”

Queen Emma inherited it from her uncle, John Young II, son of the famous advisor to Kamehameha I, John Young I, in 1857.

Queen Emma was born Emma Naea in Honolulu on January 2, 1836, the daughter of a British aristocratic woman and a Hawaiian high chief.

She became the hānai child of Dr. and Mrs. T. C. and Grace Rooke, her mother’s sister who had no children of their own. Emma grew up speaking both Hawaiian and English, the latter “with a perfect English accent.”

At 20, Emma became engaged to the king of Hawai‘i, Alexander Liholiho, (Kamehameha IV,) a 22-year-old who had ascended to the throne in 1855. The couple had known each other since childhood.

In his first speech as king, Kamehameha IV stated the need for a hospital to treat the native population. Due to introduced diseases, the Hawaiian population had plummeted, with extinction a very real possibility.

To recognize and honor Emma’s efforts, it was decided to call the new hospital “Queen’s.”

Queen Emma used the home as a retreat where she could escape from the heat of Honolulu into the coolness of Nuʻuanu. It’s about 5-miles from Downtown Honolulu and 10-miles from Waikīkī.

It was through this land that Kamehameha the Great marched during what would become the Battle of the Nu‘uanu in April 1795.

Coincidently, Kamehameha was aided by foreigners, including John Young, Queen Emma’s grandfather, who provided the cannons and tactical know-how used in the battle.

This land, a portion of a grant known as Kaukahōkū, was originally designated as Fort Land; that is, it was set apart for the use of the Fort, probably as agricultural land. However, sometime in the 1840s Kekuanaoa, Governor of the island of Oʻahu, leased the land for private use.

The Summer Palace was modeled in the Greek Revival style. It has a formal plan arrangement, wide central hall, high ceilings and floor-length hinged, in-swinging shuttered casement window.

It is one-story, over a basement, and measures about 73-feet by 51-feet. The roof is hipped over the main portion of the home and gabled over the rear lanai that was converted to a room.

The large single room in the rear of the home, also known as the Duke of Edinburgh Room, was converted from a lanai in 1869, to prepare for the reception of the Duke during a visit to Hawai‘i.

The kitchen was a small structure apart from the house. Baths were taken through large tubs brought into the bedrooms by servants and filled with buckets of hot and cold water.

Three outhouses served the occupants; one reserved for the King and Queen, one for guests and another for servants.

The Summer Palace was saved from demolition by the Daughters of Hawaiʻi. Today, the Daughters preserve and maintain this residence and the Huliheʻe Palace in Kailua-Kona as museums open to the public.

The restored and furnished home of Queen Emma and King Kamehameha IV offers a glimpse into the lifestyle of the Hawaiian monarchy.

The Daughters of Hawai‘i was founded in 1903 by seven women who were daughters of American Protestant missionaries. They were born in Hawai‘i, were citizens of the Hawaiian Kingdom before annexation and foresaw the inevitable loss of much of the Hawaiian culture.

They founded the organization “to perpetuate the memory and spirit of old Hawai‘i and of historic facts, and to preserve the nomenclature and correct pronunciation of the Hawaiian language.” (My mother was a Daughter.)

The property is open to the public, daily 9:00 am–4:00 pm; closed major holidays; Admission: Adult $6, Child 17 and under $1, Seniors $4; reservations required for groups of 20 or more.

The image shows Hānaiakamalama – Queen Emma Summer Palace. In addition, I have included other images of the property and Queen Emma in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook page.

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