LIFESTYLES
E AST O REGONIAN
MARCH 4-5, 2017
BEAUTIFUL PRISON
On a remote Hawaiian island, nine patients
remain at a 151-year-old leper colony
Story and photos by KATHY ANEY
♦
EAST OREGONIAN
This is the view seen by thousands of leprosy patients exiled to a remote peninsula on Hawaii’s island of Molokai.
T
our guide Rick Schonely summed up
the story of Molokai’s leprosy colony
in one succinct sentence.
“What started as a nightmare in 1866 has
a happy ending.”
1866 was the year 12 leprosy patients
arrived at Kalaupapa. They were the
fi rst of more than 8,000 people forcibly
removed from their families and exiled to
this isolated peninsula on the windward
side of Hawaii’s island of Molokai. They
came by sea and lived out
their lives in isolation,
trapped by a topography of
battering surf and towering
seawalls.
Schonely, the son of
Portland Trail Blazers
broadcasting legend Bill
Schonely, told the story as
he drove a rusted yellow
Kathy
school bus around the tiny
Aney
settlement, keeping up a
high-energy commentary
about the colony’s past and present. Though
the state lifted the quarantine in 1969 after
a cure became available, he said, many
residents stayed by choice. Nine remain.
The state of Hawaii has promised to provide
room, board and health care until they die.
My husband, Bill, and I relaxed in the
jostling bus and listened to Schonely with
curiosity. We had hiked roughly three
miles into the colony earlier that morning
down a rugged pathway that descended
almost 1,700 feet. The route includes 26
switchbacks and about 1,800 steps made
of cinder block and rock. Only 100 people
may visit the community daily after walking
or riding a mule or fl ying in by air taxi,
securing reservations through one of two
Kalaupapa tour companies.
At the top of the trail that morning, we
Clarence
“Uncle Boogie”
Kahilihiwa
greets a group
of visitors to
Kalaupapa,
where he was
forced to move
in 1959 after
being diag-
nosed with lep-
rosy. The native
Hawaiian runs
the bookstore.
Those hiking
down to
Kalaupapa
will descend
about 1,800
steps and
navigate
26 switch-
backs before
reaching
the historic
leper colony
on Hawaii’s
island of
Molokai.
came across a sign forbidding anyone
to proceed without permission and
warning of no medical services. On the
way down, we occasionally dared to pull
our eyes from the rocky, muddy trail to
observe feral goats, cardinals and other
creatures amid thick foliage.
At the bottom, we joined a group
of people sitting on bleachers awaiting
two tour guides. Everyone in our group
of 11 had booked through a company
called Damien Tours. The owner, Gloria
Marks, came to Kalaupapa with leprosy,
“I have learned much from them,”
or Hansen’s disease as most at the
Schonely said. “They teach us to live
colony prefer to call the affl iction. Marks aloha every day.”
arrived at Kalaupapa at age 21 and is
Schonely stopped the bus regularly so
known as Auntie Gloria. We headed to
we could troop off and wander through
the Kalaupapa bar where she sat behind
churches, graveyards, a convent and a
a table and checked off our names. She
bookstore. In the bookstore doorway
took our $60 apiece and smiled up at
stood Clarence Kahilihiwa, known in
us, scars visible on her beautiful face.
Kalaupapa as Uncle Boogie. Uncle
The bacterial disease causes disfi guring
Boogie, who runs the bookstore, fl ashed
skin lesions, nerve damage and muscle
a wide smile and offered a strong
weakness.
handshake. At 76, he is a youngster
After the group clambered back
among the patients. He bantered with his
aboard the bus,
visitors in Hawaiian
Schonely slowly
English. He was
cruised the streets. The
“I have learned- diffi cult for most to
colony, now a National
understand, but his
Historic Park managed
much from them. joie de vivre was
by the National Park
unmistakable.
They teach us
Service and the State
Another stop was
of Hawaii Department
St. Francis Catholic
to live aloha Church where we
of Health, is Mayberry-
esque, featuring a
at portraits
every day.” gazed
library, movie house,
of two Kalaupapa
post offi ce, YMCA,
heroes: Father Damien
— Rick Schonely,
bookstore, clinic,
and Sister Marianne
tour guide
athletic fi eld, churches
Cope. The pair is a
and even a horseracing
dynamic duo in the
track. Some facilities
colony – both were
are no longer in
eventually declared
operation now that the patient population saints by Pope Benedict XVI.
has dwindled. The jail, for example,
Father Damien, a Roman Catholic
provides storage instead of housing for
priest from Belgium, spent 16 years
wrongdoers.
caring for the lepers. He eventually
The bus passed a long skinny
contracted leprosy himself and died at
graveyard bordering the little
age 49. Schonely called him “champion
community. The graves, along with
of the lepers.”
others peppering the area, remind one
At our next stop, the Kalaupapa
of how many died here. Even so, only
convent and the Bishop Home for girls,
about 1,300 of those who died have
Sister Alisha Damien Lau talked about
marked gravestones. Thousands more
Sister Marianne. Lau, a nurse who
are buried in a large fi eld.
divides her time between Oahu and
When Schonely arrived in Kalaupapa Molokai, said the German-born sister
about three decades ago, about 200 of
and her cohort of nuns dispensed plenty
the patients were still alive. He said he
of love as they cared for the disfi gured
gleaned many life lessons from these
girls of Kalaupapa.
people, who live fully despite their
See KALAUPAPA/4C
circumstances.