At the end of each year, I traditionally reflect on the “Rearview Mirror” stories we published since January. Next week, I’ll be giving out my 2016 Rearview Mirror Awards for stories of the year. This week, I’m writing about the most interesting things I learned in 2016.
Writing this column is a process of discovery for me. Some things I am familiar with and some come as a surprise. It’s one of the things I love about my job. Here are the top 10 things I learned about in 2016.
1. HILO BOARDING SCHOOL
The Hilo Boarding School was the model for Kamehameha Schools, the Hampton Institute in Virginia and Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. In July, I wrote about the school, which was founded in 1836 as a feeder school for Lahainaluna on Maui.
The school focused on teaching practical vocational skills as well as training instructors. It was 40 years ahead of what is considered the oldest vocational school in the United States.
After the Civil War, Gen. Samuel Armstrong founded the Hampton Institute in Virginia. Armstrong grew up in Honolulu. His father had been a minister at Kawaiaha‘o Church.
One of Hampton’s top graduates, Booker T. Washington, at age 25 took over and transformed Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Both schools offered practical vocational and farming skills, mostly to newly freed slaves. Both used the Hilo Boarding School as their model.
A coral block from Kawaiaha‘o Church is on display at Hampton Institute. It was a gift in the 1890s.
Kamehameha Schools graduate and historian J. Arthur Rath III is a descendent of the Lymans, who founded the Hilo Boarding School.
He wrote in “Lost Generations” (University of Hawaii Press, 2006), “When Kamehameha Schools opened in 1883 it hired as its principal the Rev. William Brewster Oleson, who’d been principal at Hilo Boarding School.” Kamehameha, Rath says, was based on the Hilo Boarding School model.
2. MILLS COLLEGE
Sean Spencer told me there was a Kapiolani Road and cottage at Mills College in Oakland, Calif.
”How did that come about?” he asked.
I looked into it and found that former Punahou educators and Hawaii missionaries Cyrus and Susan Mills bought the school in 1863. The school had five royal visits from three of Hawaii’s kings and queens.
King Kalakaua visited Mills College twice, in 1872 and 1881. His wife, Queen Kapiolani, visited on her own in 1887. Kalakaua’s sister, Queen Liliuokalani, visited in 1878 and 1887.
However, the Kapiolani Road and Kapiolani Cottage were named for an aunt of the queen: Chiefess Kapiolani, who was famous for defying Madame Pele at Kilauea Volcano in 1824.
I know of U.S. colleges that were visited by a single Hawaiian king or queen, but none with five such visits.
3. HAL “AKU” LEWIS
Disc jockey Hal “Aku” Lewis sent a caravan of 442nd vets to Texas when Sen. Tom Connally criticized Hawaii’s ethnic mix and patriotism.
“I think I am a better American than a great many people who live in Hawaii,” Connally said in March 1952, during a debate on Hawaiian statehood. “I have been to Hawaii. The majority of the people there are not of American ancestry or descent.”
On the air the next day, Aku told listeners that the senator from Texas had insulted all the people of Hawaii. He suggested Hawaii should send a couple of war veterans to Washington to protest the remarks.
In the next few days, $7,000 was sent to Aku from all over the state.
A week later, four combat veterans of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and 100th Battalion were on their way to the mainland. The “Connally Caravan” picked up another vet in Texas.
For 10 days, national news outlets covered the story from Hawaii to Texas to Washington in newsreels, wire photos, newspapers and a new medium called television.
The veterans met with Connally and reminded him that the 442nd and 100th teams had rescued Texas’ 36th Division in Italy during World War II fighting.
4. KENNEDY’S HAWAII ROOMMATE
In June, I wrote about Jackie, Caroline and John-John Kennedy’s seven-week vacation in Hawaii in 1966.
Jackie said she came to Hawaii because three of her Vassar College friends were from Hawaii.
“I had never heard any people speak of home with such nostalgia as they did — the waters, the winds, the names, the flowers, the peace. I always wanted to come to the place that was loved so much.”
Jackie’s Vassar roommate was local girl Edna Harrison, whose mother occasionally sent gift baskets of island treats. The fragrance of pikake lei in particular lingered in their room, which Jackie found delightful.
5. THE HAWAII CAT CONNECTION
John-John and Caroline Kennedy adopted a lost cat on Kahala Beach they named Kamehameha. When they returned home six weeks later, Kamehameha made the trip with the Kennedys in a cat carrier.
6. SAMUEL C. ARMSTRONG
A Hawaii boy was a Civil War brigadier general at 26 years of age. Samuel C. Armstrong, who was mentioned in my first point, was born in Wailuku and grew up in Honolulu.
When the Civil War started, he enlisted as a captain but was promoted to major, then colonel, when he led the Union’s 9th regiment of “colored” troops.
When the war ended, he was a brigadier general at Appomattox and witnessed Robert E. Lee’s surrender.
7. JACK DE MELLO
Jack De Mello, who just turned 100 in November, brought full-orchestra symphonic sound to Hawaiian music. He recorded more than 200 albums and 500 Hawaiian songs. That’s an amazing number.
8. THE MONKEES
The Monkees’ first concert was in Hawaii. The TV musical group was supposed to be America’s answer to The Beatles. They played four young men who wanted to become a rock group.
Local boy Ron Jacobs, who worked at KHVH and KPOI, told me he was station manager for Los Angeles station KHJ in the 1960s. When The Monkees were to debut on TV in 1966, he designed a promotional train trip called Last Train to Clarksville (the name of their first hit record) with fans riding to San Diego and back. The Monkees played on the trip and sang part of the time.
When the show was a hit, the first place The Monkees performed live in a concert venue was the Miss KPOI Pageant on Dec. 3, 1966, in Honolulu.
9. MARY ROBINSON FOSTER
Mary Foster is famous for leaving her gardens to the city in the 1930s. In researching her father, James Robinson, I found that his first ship repair business was at what was then called Pakaka Point. This was in the 1820s. His first daughter, Mary, was born there.
About 100 years later, the area was developed into Piers 8, 9, 10 and 11, and Aloha Tower was built there.
10. PAPAHANAUMOKUAKEA
The name of the marine sanctuary in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands — Papahanaumokuakea — has an interesting Hawaiian meaning.
William Aila, a member of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve Advisory Council, told me the name means the meeting of Papahanaumoku, the earth mother, and Wakea, the sky father.
“If you’re a sailor, the meeting of the sky father and the earth mother is something that’s very visual,” he said.
“As you pull islands out of the ocean, you see the earth mother rising to greet the sky father.”
I HOPE you learned something interesting this year in “Rearview Mirror.” That’s my goal. All of these columns are available at staradvertiser.com, in case you missed any of them.
Bob Sigall, author of “The Companies We Keep” series of books, looks through his collection of old photos to tell stories of Hawaii people, places and companies. Contact him via email at sigall@yahoo.com.
