“Queen Lili‘uokalani, the Dominis Family, and Washington Place, Their Home”

Rianna M. Williams

Bess Press, $29.95

Liliuokalani reigned as queen of Hawaii for only two years but lived for 79. “I concentrate on those long years,” writes Rianna M. Williams, a docent at Washington Place and author of “Queen Lili‘uokalani, the Dominis Family, and Washington Place, Their Home.” Her lovingly compiled, photo-filled book is dedicated to historian Jim Bartels, who worked with former first lady Vicky Cayetano to restore the mansion as a museum.

An alii who was not to the Western manor born, Lydia Liliu Loloku Walania Kamakaeha was delivered in 1838 in a “windowless, grass-thatched home on the family compound near the foot of Puowaina (Punchbowl),” as Williams describes it. She was “hanai’d” to High Chief Abner Paki and his wife, Laura Konia, and raised as a sister to their daughter Bernice Pauahi. Her name, which means “smarting tearful burning pain and sore eye,” was chosen by Kinau, who ruled as regent with Kauikeaouli and had an eye infection at the time.

While Liliuokalani was a student at the Chiefs’ Children’s School, her future husband, John Dominis, would climb the fence to peep at the royal children from the Oahu Charity School next door. He eventually became governor of Oahu, and among many salient details in her book, Williams notes that Dominis was executor of Princess Victoria Kamamalu’s estate, which was bought at auction by Lihue Plantation when she died in 1870.

In 1862 Liliuokalani married Dominis, son of an American captain who built Washington Place and vanished at sea in 1847. Grim mother-in-law problems ensued: “John elected to continue living with his mother at Washington Place after his marriage, bringing into her home a dark-skinned foreign woman, disliked by his mother. Apparently Mary forgot that she was the actual foreigner.”

While the book focuses on private rather than political life, it shows how difficult it was to separate the two in the case of Liliuokalani. As Williams notes, “Whether Dominis married Lili‘u for love or for his own agenda, as Lili‘u offered him access to privilege and power in Hawaii society, we do not know.”

But one can guess, based on his extramarital affairs and drinking, and entries from Liliuokalani’s diaries. Despite a confusing chronology that jumps around in time, and some unfortunate typos, the human details make for a captivating story. Liliuokalani’s hanai daughter, Lydia Aholo, who graduated from Oberlin College, remembers the queen always spoke softly, loved flowers and “had a slight limp. One shoe was built up just a little.”

A welcome chapter on feminism reveals that the queen founded an eponymous education society for Hawaiian girls, as well as a savings bank exclusively for women. Also covered are her musicianship and her other homes at Waikiki, including Paoakalani (“royal perfume”) and Kealohilani (“royal brightness”), the latter a seaside cottage later acquired by Prince Kuhio. One realizes that although it was a convenient midtown gathering place, Washington Place never really could have felt like a real home to this artistic, nature-loving woman.