Saint Damien | Page 3 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

February 27, 2022 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Marianne Cope

“I am hungry for the work. … I am not afraid of any disease, hence it would be my greatest delight even to minister the abandoned ‘lepers.’”

Farmers Peter and Barbara Koob had five children in Germany and five children in the United States. On January 23, 1838, their daughter, Barbara Koob (variants: Kob, Kopp and now officially Cope,) was born in the German Grand Duchy of Hess-Darmstadt. The next year, the family immigrated to the United States to seek opportunity.

The Koob family settled in Utica, New York and became members of St. Joseph Parish, where the children attended the parish school.

In 1848, young Barbara received her First Holy Communion and was confirmed at St. John Parish in Utica when, in accordance with the practice of the time, the bishop of the diocese came to the largest church in the area to administer these two sacraments at the same ceremony.

After her father’s death, Barbara, in August, 1862, entered the Sisters of the Third Order of Saint Francis in Syracuse, NY, and, on November 19, 1862, she was invested at the Church of the Assumption. She soon became known as Sister Marianne.

As a member of the governing boards of her religious community, she participated in the establishment of two of the first hospitals in the central New York area, St. Elizabeth Hospital in Utica (1866) and St. Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse (1869). These two hospitals were among the first 50 general hospitals in the US.

Sister Marianne began her new career as administrator at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse, NY in 1870 where she served as head administrator for six of the hospital’s first seven years.

In 1877, Sister Marianne was elected Mother General of the Franciscan congregation and given the title “Mother” as was the custom of the time.

In 1883, she received a letter from Father Leonor Fouesnel, a missionary in Hawaiʻi, to come to Hawaiʻi to help “procure the salvation of souls and to promote the glory of God.”

Of the 50 religious communities in the US contacted, only Mother Marianne’s Order of Sisters agreed to come to Hawaiʻi to care for people with Hansen’s Disease (known then as leprosy).

The Sisters arrived in Hawaiʻi on November 8, 1883, dedicating themselves to the care of the 200-lepers in Kakaʻako Branch Hospital on Oʻahu. This hospital was built to accommodate 100-people, but housed more than 200.

The condition at the hospital were deplorable. Each Sister-nurse learned to wash the wounds, to apply soothing ointment to the wounds, and to bring a sense of order to the lawlessness that prevails when there is abandonment of hope.

In 1884, Mother Marianne Cope and the Sisters of St. Francis came to Maui and with a royal bequest from Queen Kapiʻolani, established Malulani Hospital (“Protection of Heaven”) in Wailuku, next to the site of St. Anthony’s Church. Malulani was the first hospital established on Maui.

In 1885, realizing that healthy children of leprous patients were at high risk of contracting the disease, yet had no place to live, she founded Kapiʻolani Home on Oʻahu for healthy female children of leprosy patients. Because of her work, she was the recipient of the Royal Medal of Kapiʻolani.

In the summer of 1886, the Sisters took care of Father Damien (later Saint Damien) when he visited Honolulu during his bout with leprosy. He asked the Sisters to take over for him when he died.

Mother Marianne led the first contingent of Sister-nurses to Kalaupapa, Molokaʻi, where more than a thousand people with leprosy had been exiled. Upon arrival, on November 14, 1888, she opened the CR Bishop Home for homeless women and girls with Hansen’s Disease. To improve the bleak conditions, Mother Marianne grew fruits, vegetables and landscaped the area with trees, thus creating a better environment among the residents.

While at Kalaupapa, Mother Marianne predicted that no Franciscan Sister would ever contract leprosy. Additionally she required her sisters use stringent hand washing and other sanitary procedures.

Upon the death of Saint Damien on April 15, 1889, Mother Marianne agreed to head the Boys Home at Kalawao. The Board of Health had quickly chosen her as Saint Damien’s successor and she was thus enabled to keep her promise to him to look after his boys.

The Boys Home at Kalawao was completely renovated between 1889 – 1895 during her administration. During the renovation, it was renamed Baldwin Home by the Board of Health in honor of its leading benefactor, HP Baldwin.

The two new Sisters who came to run the Home were accompanied on their boat journey by poet Robert Louis Stevenson, who stayed for a week. During his stay, he wrote a poem for Mother Marianne and later donated a piano so that “there will always be music.”

Mother Marianne’s spirit of self-sacrifice enabled her to live and work with leper patients for 35 years. Although there was not yet a cure, the Sisters could offer the lepers some semblance of dignity and as pleasant a life as possible.

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.

On December 19, 2011, Pope Benedict signed and approved the promulgation of the decree for her sainthood and she was canonized on October 21, 2012. (Information here is primarily from Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace.)

February 3, 2022 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Georges Phillipe Trousseau

Georges Trousseau was born in Paris on May 1, 1833 to a prominent Parisian family. His father, Armand Trousseau, a distinguished physician and surgeon, was also the author of medical books used throughout the world. (Greenwell)

He received the usual education of a wealthy Frenchman and entered the ecole de medicine in Paris at the early age of 15. (Hawaiʻi Holomua, May 5, 1894)

From the days in 1848 and 1852, when he as a student fought in the streets of Paris, he has unswervingly believed in the rights of the people – and early or late was he found ready to serve them as a physician as a friend or simply as a fellow-man. (Hawaiʻi Holomua, May 5, 1894)

Trousseau married Edna Vaunois, who was also from Paris; they had two children, Armond and Rene in 1856 and 1857. In 1865, the couple was legally separated (but never divorced.)

He followed his father’s footsteps and graduated from the Paris School of Medicine as a physician in 1858. He became an army surgeon, seeing service in Algiers early in the fifties. He also served at Solferino and Magenta, Italy. (Greenwell)

For personal reasons, he left France and went to Australia and New Zealand. In part, he was at the Australian gold mines, but did not strike it rich; in fact, his estranged wife loaned him money while he was there. (Greenwell, Hawaiʻi Holomua, May 5, 1894)

He left there and arrived in Hawaiʻi in 1872. Almost immediately upon his arrival, he was appointed by the Board of Health to serve as Port Physician for Honolulu (there was no salary attached to the office; fees for services were worked out between the Port Physician and the ship/agent the usual charge was $25.) (Greenwell)

He soon gained great fame as a doctor. He served on the Board of Health for 20-years, serving as a Board member and as President. He took an interest in Leprosy and supervised the leper treatment center in Kalihi.

In 1865, the legislature of the Hawaiian Islands had passed “An Act to Prevent the Spread of Leprosy.” This law called for a place to be set aside for the isolation of those found to have leprosy in order to curb the spread of the disease. It was not until 1873, however, on Doctor Trousseau’s recommendation, that a vigorous effort was made to segregate lepers. (Greenwell)

“Trousseau strongly urging that the only method, at all likely to be successful, was the immediate, energetic, and to a certain extent, unsympathetic isolation of all who were afflicted with the disease, and even that would require a generation in all probability to prove successful.” (Board of Health, March 1, 1873)

He diagnosed Father (now Saint) Damien’s leprosy. “… In January, 1885 Damien visited Honolulu … (and accidentally) scalded his left foot. Father Leonore, the provincial of the mission, phoned for Dr George Trousseau, whose examination of the priest’s foot and leg proved they were devoid of feeling … this discovery indicated that the peroneal nerve and its branches were dead due to leprosy.” (Mouritz; Bushnell)

Though not an official title, Trousseau served as royal physician. He was called on as a consultant by Doctor Ferdinand W Hutchison, Minister of the Interior, during Kamehameha V’s last illness and was at the King’s bedside when he died.

In August 1873, when it was apparent that King Lunalilo was ill, Trousseau accompanied the King and stayed with Lunalilo at Huliheʻe Palace in Kailua- Kona, from mid-November to the middle of January 1874. After it became apparent that Lunalilo was not going to recover, and the royal party returned to Honolulu where Lunalilo died on February 3. (Greenwell)

The rulers of Hawaiʻi honored him. Lunalilo made him a major in his staff and his personal physician. Kalākaua befriended him and appointed him the executor of his will and the administrator of his estate. (Hawaiʻi Holomua, May 5, 1894)

“(H)e was always ready to promote any now industry that might prove a source of benefit to his adopted country.” This got him involved in sheep, sugar and ostriches. (Hawaiʻi Holomua, May 5, 1894)

In 1875, he gave up his Honolulu medical practice and moved to Kona, Hawaiʻi, where he purchased a sheep and cattle ranch at Kanahaha high on the slopes of Mauna Loa. Wool was baled at Kanahaha and transported by cart to Kainaliu Beach, from where it was shipped. (Greenwell)

A road was constructed which ran from Kanahaha on Mauna Loa, to the beach at Kainaliu (where he also had a home.) (This old cart road is used by jeeps today and is known as the Trousseau Trail.) Early in 1879, Trousseau sold all of his holdings in Kona to Henry N Greenwell.

After selling the sheep ranch, Trousseau bought out two sugar planters at Kukuihaele on the Hāmākua coast. He became partners in the Pacific Sugar Mill with the Purvis family. Trousseau had an excellent relationship with John Purvis and his son Herbert. (Greenwell)

The plantation thrived for a time. However, defects in the furnace caused difficulties. In 1881, Trousseau suddenly and unexpectedly sold his half in the plantation to his partners. He moved back to Honolulu and resumed his medical practice.

He tried one last agricultural venture there. “The doctor started a new industry for these islands a few years ago (1890) by establishing an ostrich farm at Kapiʻolani Park. Many young birds have been bred from the original stock, and some of the feathers have gone into domestic exports. The farm was under the management of Captain John Morriseau (Trousseau’s nephew.)” (Daily Bulletin, May 5, 1894)

The 1,000-acre farm (purchased from the Lunalilo Estate) was located in the Kapahulu area near the present zoo; Paul Isenberg, who owned a nearby cattle ranch, later purchased the farm (Trousseau Street notes the general location.)

Though Trousseau never divorced, he did have a mistress, Makanoe; Makanoe was also married (to Kaʻaepa.) (This relationship is referred to as ‘punalua;’ an association in which, typically, two women, often sisters, share one husband, or, as in Makanoeʻs case, two men share the affection of one woman.) (Greenwell)

Trousseau died May 4, 1894, shortly after Kaʻaepa’s death. Makanoe buried her husband and Trousseau side by side in a wrought iron fenced plot at Makiki Cemetery on Oʻahu. Trousseau left all of his estate to Makanoe (she eventually moved to Salt Lake City, Utah.)

Trousseau faithfully supported the Hawaiian Monarchy and stood up for the royalists which caused bitter feelings among many of his associates who backed the annexationists.

In spite of this, his obituary noted, “It is seldom that people of all classes, opposed to each other socially and politically can gather around the bier of a fellow-citizen and unite in saying, ‘we have lost a friend.’” (Hawaiʻi Holomua, May 5, 1894)

“Dr. Trousseau was a strong nationalist of Hawaiʻi, who believed that none but born or naturalized subjects should have a determining voice in national affairs. The Hawaiian people, who revered and confided in him, will take his death as a sort bereavement.” (Daily Bulletin, May 5, 1894) (Lots of information here from Jean Greenwell.)

April 23, 2020 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Meyer Sugar

At the age of twenty-four, Rudolph Wilhelm Meyer emigrated from Germany to Hawaiʻi where he arrived on January 20, 1850. At the time, Meyer listed his occupation as a surveyor.

His main purpose in leaving Germany was to join the “Gold Rush” to California in 1848, but he was delayed on a stopover in Sidney, Australia, and again in Tahiti, after which he landed at Lāhaina, Maui.

Meyer spoke German, French and English when he arrived in Hawaiʻi, and soon wrote and spoke fluent Hawaiian.

Meyer settled on Molokai. There, he met the Reverend Harvey Rexford Hitchcock I, who accepted him as a house guest at Kaluaʻaha, Molokai.

While living with Reverend Hitchcock, he met High Chiefess Kalama Waha, who later became his wife. Sometime later, he moved his family to Honolulu where he worked for Austin and Becker at an office located on Maunakea Street.

The Meyer family later moved back to Molokai and made their permanent residence at Kalaʻe. They eventually had eleven children, six boys and five girls.

He supported his family, in part, by holding a number of local commissions from the Royal Hawaiian government, but primarily from his diverse agricultural activity.

Ranching began on Molokai in the first half of the 19th-century when Kamehameha V set up a country estate on the island, part of which is now the Molokai Ranch. Rudolph Meyer, one of the first western farmers on Molokai, served as ranch manager for King Kamehameha V. (DLNR)

He planted at various times coffee, corn, wheat, oats, taro, potatoes, beets, cassava, peaches, mangoes, bananas and grapes. He was the first on Molokai to grow, produce and mill sugar and coffee commercially and he exported these to Honolulu and California. He also operated a large dairy from which he produced butter.

Meyer started to grow sugar at the time when the 1876 Reciprocity Treaty between the United States and Hawaiʻi removed the tariff on Hawaiian sugar sold in the United States.

Rather than the expansion and innovation that followed the Treaty, Meyer scaled his mill to satisfy the modest 50- ton annual production from his family’s 30-acres of sugar cane.

Constructed in the 1870s the RW Meyer Sugar Mill is one of the only sites in Hawaiʻi with sufficient material remains intact to demonstrate, fairly completely, a nineteenth-century process of sugar manufacture. The equipment included a mule-driven cane crusher, redwood evaporating pans and some copper clarifiers.

In the early-1880s, when the average investment in Hawaiʻi’s fifth-six sugar plantations exceeded $280,000, the Meyer family investment of $10,000 made their mill one of the smallest in Hawaiʻi.

Meyer adopted and followed mill practices more representative of the 1850s and the 1860s than the 1870s and 1880s. In the 1850s, animals powered the mill equipment; while he stuck with this method into the future, others replaced the animal power with steam and water.

The Meyer Sugar Mill easily accommodated the milling requirements of the family’s sugar lands and repaid the investment within a few years; however, during the 1880s the price paid for sugar steadily declined.

The Planters’ Monthly reported in July, 1887, that “Low prices of sugar still prevail…and many a man who once thought himself assured of reasonable wealth through sugar, now finds that it will not even yield him a competence…only running the sugar business on a large scale can it be made to pay.”

In 1892, CM Hyde reported that the Meyer Mill stopped producing sugar cane when “The low price of the product for the last few years … made it more than unprofitable to engage in sugar manufactured in a small way. Now the lands are given up to grazing.”

Meyer also served as the Superintendent of the isolated Kalawao settlement (Kalaupapa) (serving with Father Damien and Mother Marianne Cope (now, both are Saints)) from 1866 till his death in 1897 (he continued to live with his family at the top of the cliffs, rather than on the Kalaupapa Peninsula.)

He also created one of the first trails used to travel between Kalaupapa Peninsula and the mauka lands. It was used to transport cattle and supplies down to Kalawao.

RW Meyer Ltd still owns property in the southwest corner of the Kalaupapa National Historical Park near the Kalaupapa Trailhead and maintains a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Park for trail access, maintenance and the planting of native plants. The Meyer Mill has been restored and is operating as a museum. Lots of information here is from NPS and rwmeyer-com.

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Meyer Sugar Mill Museum (Crusher)

Meyer Sugar Mill Museum

January 10, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

John Emil Van Lil

“In September, 1865, the spit of land on the northern or windward side of the island of Molokai was chosen as a suitable site for the establishment of a settlement for the segregation of lepers.”

“The site is probably one of the most suitable and isolated that could have been chosen for such a purpose. It is surrounded on the north, east, and west by the sea, and the base or southern side is placed beneath a steep pali or precipice from 1,800 to 2,000 feet high, which discourages communication with the rest of the island.”

“The first settlement was at Kalawao, on the eastern side of the spit of land. It lies close to the mountains at the rear and is much exposed to the northeast trade winds.”

“Kalaupapa, the more recent and larger settlement, is situated on the plain to the westward, is further removed from the steep cliffs, and is somewhat protected from northeast winds by the crater of Kahukoo.”

“When the board of health first opened the settlement, and for many years afterwards, much difficulty was experienced from the presence of persons who owned parcels of land in this tract and who were called Kamainas or old settlers. They were not subject to the laws governing lepers, and were free to come and go from the settlement at will.”

“The Hawaiian government has secured the property owned by those Kamainas, and they have been removed from the settlement. Molokai is probably the most complete settlement of its kind in the world.”

“It has hospitals, churches, homes for leprous children, male and female, stores, market dispensaries, cottages for leper residents, jail, storehouses, etc. The majority of the lepers live in cottages built by themselves or by the government, and in the settlement there is a total of all buildings of 716.” (Carmichael, Leprosy in the US, December 30, 1898)

“At a distance Kalaupapa looks like a prosperous little town, and in anticipation of the visit of the board of health a large number of the habitants had gathered at the landing place, some on foot and many mounted on horses.”

“Some difficulty was experienced in landing, which was done by open boat, there being no docks or wharves, as there was a strong northerly swell and the surf was somewhat dangerous. In the hands of natives skilled in surfboating this was soon accomplished without accident, and the entire party landed.”

“Here were seen the different churches, Protestant, Catholic, and Mormon, including that built by Father Damien, and the grave of this leper martyr by the church side. The Baldwin Home for leprous boys was then visited, and the hospitals and cottages for the accommodation of lepers in various stages of the disease.” (Carmichael, Public Health Reports, December 30, 1898)

American Protestant missionary H Harvey Hitchcock held a three-day meeting at Kala‘e, on the cliffs above Kalaupapa, in 1838, which was attended by many from the peninsula and the northern valleys. (An out-station of the Kalua‘aha mission was established there around 1840.) In 1839 a Hawai’ian missionary teacher named Kanakaokai was stationed on the peninsula.

Siloama Protestant Church was the first church to be erected at Kalawao Settlement at Kalaupapa, it was originally constructed and dedicated on October 28, 1871 by the Protestant Congregational Church.

Kana‘ana Hou Church (New Canaan church) was a branch of Siloama’s church; it was built in Kalaupapa in 1878 and enlarged in 1890. In 1881, the congregations of Kalawao and Kalaupapa united as Kanaana Hou. Siloama Church was rebuilt in the 1960s.

Belgium-born Joseph De Veuster arrived in Honolulu on March 19, 1864. There he was ordained a Catholic Priest in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace on May 31 and took the name of Damien.

Another Belgian, John Emil Van Lil, son of John Francis Van Lil and Marie Teresa, came to the peninsula near the turn of the century. He was a lay Catholic brother assisted at the Baldwin Home.

He later was in “charge of all (animal) stock. Mr. Van Lil is a practical farmer, and enthusiastic in his work and I feel that our dairy and farm matters are in good hands.” (Report of the Superintendent of the Leper Settlement, BOH Annual Report, 1903)

“(A) hog ranch (had previously been started) with one boar and ten sows. We have now over one hundred pigs. but through lack of food am unable to go ahead as fast as we might. As the pork is to be issued to the people in lieu of beef, I do not believe it would be a paying proposition to purchase food from the outside.”

“We have cleared about six acres of land in one of the sheltered valleys and planted four thousand papaia trees; about 50 per cent. of which are coming along nicely.”

“We have also planted about two acres in pumpkins which are also doing well. As papaias and pumpkins make good hog feed combined with the cooked offal from the slaughter house. it is only a question of time until we will have sufficient food for all the hogs we can raise.” (Report of the Superintendent of the Leper Settlement, BOH Annual Report, 1903)

“The general health conditions of the Settlement have been excellent … and I here with wish to express my appreciation to Superintendent McVeigh for his foresight in establishing and maintaining this dairy …”

“… as well as to Mr. Emil Van Lil for his able management of the same; not one of the numerous daily milk orders issued having been dishonored, although some 56 gallons of milk are requisitioned daily.” (Board of Health Annual Report, 1906)

A patient from Lahaina, Elizabeth Kaehukai (Baker) Napoleon, had “married Walter U(w)aia Napoleon on April 26, 1890 and they had 12 children together. Seventeen years later, she and Uaia divorced on Dec. 27, 1907.”

“The divorce decree states, ‘On 11 Nov. 1907, Uaia, without just cause or provocation, turned Elizabeth out of his house, and refused to allow her to re-enter their house. Uaia utterly failed, neglected and refused to provide Elizabeth lodging, clothing, food and other necessities. Uaia also refused to allow their children to see or talk with her.’”

“It is likely that Uaia suspected Elizabeth had early signs of leprosy and this is why he kicked her out of the house. By court order, Elizabeth was allowed visits with her children on Saturdays and Monday from 9 am to 7 pm. On Sept. 22, 1911, she was taken in for suspicion of leprosy. She was sent to Kalaupapa on April 9, 1912.” (NPS)

There, she met and married (October 12, 1914) Van Lil at Kalawao. “Six months later, Van Lil was examined on April 10, 1915 and found to have leprosy. He was 59 years old.” (NPS)

“The huge Belgian dairyman, good Van Lil, of old memory, now a patient, had married another, and the pair lived happily in a vine-hidden cottage near Kalawao, making the most of their remaining time on earth.”

“Beyond a fleeting embarrassment in his vague blue eye, he met us on the Damien Road with the undimmed buoyancy of other years, and our eyes could see no blemish on his face. Probably we were more affected than he, for in the main the victim of leprosy is as optimistic as he of the White Plague.”

“And Emil Van Lil was not the only one whom we saw who had perforce changed his status toward society in the intervening eight years. The little mail-carrier who had led us up out of the Settlement, we found in the Bay View Home, cheerful as of yore, although far gone with the malefic blight.”

“And, auwe! some of the men and women we had known here before as extreme cases still lingered, sightless perhaps, but trying to smile with what was left of their contorted visages, in recognition of our voices.”

“Others, whose closing throats had smothered them, breathed through silver tubes in their windpipes. Strange is this will to persist tenacity of life!” (Charmian London )wife of Jack London), 1917)

“Van Lil died four years after Elizabeth on May 2, 1925. He does not have a marked grave.” (NPS)

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John Emil Van Lil

Kalaupapa Molokai-Bertram

Kalaupapa Dairy-Van Lil in white-NPS

Kalaupapa Dairy-Van Lil center-NPS

Catholic Mission_Church-Bertram

Kalaupapa, Molokai-Bertram

Catholic Mission Church-Bertram

St. Philomena’s Church-Bertram

St. Philomena Church-Bertram

June 1, 2017 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Star of the Sea

Belgian Priest Father John Berchmans Velghe came to the Islands in 1899; he served in South Kona and built, and painted, what is known as the ‘Painted Church’ in Honaunau.

Father John’s health deteriorated and he had to return to Belgium in 1904, he was never able to finish the church. Even throughout his last years he continued to paint and teach.

While teaching at the Sacred Hearts’ Apostolic School at Aarschot, Belgium, in around 1924 or 1926, he met the young student Matthias Gielen, who was to become Father Evarist of Hawai‘i.

Father Evarist was born in Vlytingen, Belgium in 1897; was trained at the Sacred Hearts’ Scholasticate in Father John’s birthplace, Courtrai, and was ordained at Liege in 1925.

He next studied at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, and consequently sent to Hawai‘i. From 1927 to 1941, he served in the Puna district of the Big Island. He built Catholic churches at Pahoa, Mountain View and Kalapana.

Father Damien Joseph DeVeuster (now Saint Damien) preceded Father John and Father Evarist to the Island of Hawai‘i (he came in 1857.) He is credited with building the first Catholic place of worship for the Puna district.

It was a small ‘house’ of bamboo poles coconut fronds and pili grass probably in Kapa‘ahu, about three miles southwest of Kalapana. Although Damien stayed only one year, it is believed he left behind a plan for the building of a more permanent church, a stone church at Kapa‘ahu called St. Joseph’s.

Sometime in the early 1900s, Father Ulrich Taube, abandoned the stone church and built a wooden church in Kalapana, closer to the villagers and Father Evarist replaced that church, close to the beach and villagers.

The church was blessed on April 19, 1931 and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of Star of the Sea, the patroness of Catholic missions to sailors and seafarers. Stella Maris is a name for the “North Star,” Polaris, which provided navigational direction in antiquity.

The name was applied to Mary in the early centuries of the Christian Church as a sign of hope, a guiding star for Christians pointing toward her son Jesus. The Marian prayer, Ave Maris Stella, became a popular devotion during the Middle Ages. (Ohana1827)

Father Evarist painted stories of the Bible on the walls, columns and ceiling of the Star of the Sea Church; he painted to instruct his parishioners (many could not read.)

The architecture of Star of the Sea is typical of Catholic mission churches throughout the Islands, it’s a simple, rectangular building approximately 22 feet by 36 feet, clapboard sided with a steep corrugated metal gable roof, a small gable extension to the rear of the church, and a square tower to the right side capped by a hipped roof.

But, it is the relationship of the paintings to the building that enhance the architecture that makes Star of the Sea Painted Church an outstanding example.

The artwork expands the interior space, provides architectural detailing (through Corinthian columns and ribbed vaults) while also serving the crucial function of educating the congregation.

“All the windows are double and take the traditional form of the tablets of the Ten Commandments; this form is echoed, somewhat larger, by the six paintings on the barrel-vaulted ceiling.”

“The windows and the door of the confessional are framed with painted vine, leaf and jewel motifs in gold and brown over blue, and this painting likewise finds an echo in the leafy adornment of the broad, black, wooden ribs which divide the ceiling into three large sections.”

“Between each of the double windows stands a pair of Corinthian columns painted flat on the wall and seeming to support the thin moulding from which the barrel vault springs. Running the entire length of the wall is a red painted canopy from which hang five small scallops of drapery over each window and two large puffs behind the capital of each column.”

“Each of the three grand sections of the ceiling is subdivided by a pair of narrow painted ribs which start from their corners and proceed diagonally to cross at the apex of the barrel vault, leaving a large triangular area on each side; within these triangular areas appear the six large pictures”.

“All the pictures on the ceiling were painted on a light blue ground, which shows through the crackle and flake and has much to do with their generally cool tone.”

“Starting at the right near the door, these pictures are: ‘The Death of Ahab,’… ‘St. Cecilia,’… ‘The Mocking of Christ.’ Starting at the door on the left-hand side of the church, the pictures appear in the following order: ‘The Death of a Sinner,’ … ‘The Guardian Angel’… ‘Christ the King.’”

“On the arch over the recess containing the altar are four very lively angels bearing a ribbon inscribed ‘Maria ka koku O ke kai epale oe makou.’ This is translated into English along the lower edge of the arch: ‘Star of the Sea, pray for us.’”

“At the apex of the arch stands Mary holding the infant Jesus,… A large gold star appears behind this figure, and behind that is blue sea…”

“The barrel-vaulted ceiling over the altar is painted with crossed ribs and graceful leaf forms like those used elsewhere in the church, and in its free spaces appear four angels whose large wings, flowing drapery and extended gestures are the very essence of wind-whipped flight.” (Frankenstein)

Father Evarist eventually retired to Maui, and over time other artists contributed to the artwork. In 1964, at the invitation of then pastor Father Joseph McGinn, a hitchhiker artist from Athens, Georgia named George Heidler added koa wood Stations of the Cross and brightly colored paintings to the lower walls of the church.

However, in 1975, when parishioners invited the retired Father Evarist to visit in celebration of his 50th priestly anniversary, the historian Father Louis Yim relates that …

“A shocking incident took place. Without a word to anyone, the old priest went into the church with a can of light blue paint and covered over Heidler’s painted scenes on the church walls.” Father Evarist spent three months repainting and restoring his 45 year-old murals.

In 1978-79, Father Joseph E. Avery commissioned the Hilo artist George Lorch to paint a series of miniaturist murals over Gielen’s light blue paint and blank spaces.

Lorch’s work portrays figures and events of Catholic history and devotion including: Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary in the Hawaiian language, the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima, and two priests of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts. (Ohana1827)

On January 3, 1983 the Pu‘u ‘O‘o eruption on the east rift zone of Kilauea Volcano began. It has the distinction of being the longest-lived historical rift zone eruption at Kilauea.

In 1990, the eruption entered its most destructive phase when flows flooded the village of Kalapana. Over 100 homes were destroyed in a 9-month period. Eventually, new lava tubes formed, diverting lava away from Kalapana early in 1991. (SOEST)

Almost lost was Star of the Sea. As the lava approached, church parishioners decided to move the building to safety. The wooden Roman Catholic Church slowly made its way on a trailer down Beach Road, which crews had cleared of utility poles and overhanging tree branches. It was trucked about a mile out of town. (LA Times)

It is now situated on higher ground outside of Kalapana. Star of the Sea is owned today by the Kalapana ʻOhana Association. It was “decommissioned” by the diocese. (Hawai‘i Catholic Herald) It is now typically open to the public during the day.

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