Editor’s note: On Dec. 3, the Kaua‘i Museum celebrates its 50th anniversary. Museum leaders have chosen 50 stories from exhibits, collections and the archives of the museum to share with the public. One story will run daily through Dec. 3.
Editor’s note: On Dec. 3, the Kaua‘i Museum celebrates its 50th anniversary. Museum leaders have chosen 50 stories from exhibits, collections and the archives of the museum to share with the public. One story will run daily through Dec. 3.
Isabel Faye was born in 1895 to Hans Peter and Margaret Lindsay Faye as the oldest of eight children. She recounts her stories of their family summer sojourns in the cool uplands of Koke‘e. In a 1981 interview with David Penhallow, she recounts those summers. This is one of numerous oral histories in the Kaua‘i Museum collection. Isabel Faye, Ruth Knudsen Hanner, and Joseph Souza were founders of the Koke‘e Natural History Museum.
“We enjoyed two summers at Kaholuamanu with the Gays and five summers at Koke‘e in the early 1900s.” The family traveled up into the mountains as the summer heat started to make Kekaha unbearable, spending the whole summer camping either as guests of the Knudsen or Gay families, and then later at their own campsite which is still there. The men, those working on the plantations, traveled up the mountains on the weekends, sending supplies up with the cowboys.
“Yasumoto and Mitsu, husband and wife cooked for us at Koke‘e. He was the cook and she was the housemaid. On weekend Father would ride up. Every Sunday we’d have a lot of men from the plantation. We’d have pot roast and stew and things like that. They’d be put in a cool place, as we didn’t have any ice. One of those safes with all sides open with a bag over it with water dripping over it. Every day we had to wet it.”
“On Saturday Louie Kilauano came with our supplies for the week in with a team. On Tuesday, one of the cowboys rode up with the meat and the mail. Mail was a great event and the newspaper. They would ride in at the same time every week because they wanted to go back in the same day. We were well fed and food was with rice and we also had porridge. There was no question about variation. It was just plain porridge. Then there was always hard tack. We’d put canned salmon or anything else on the hard tack. We used canned milk a lot. A cow was kept in the corral with her calf and we had milk.
“We couldn’t be too fussy on a picnic. It was Eric Knudsen who taught us how to bring food along on a picnic because he’d always have a can and stuff along with a can opener. If we had an avocado, we’d take it along. We’d take oranges and things like that. The servants didn’t go on picnic with us. They would have their day off and they would do what they wanted to do.
“In Koke‘e they would take walks and women would take their embroidery in the woods and enjoy themselves. Horses were at a premium and the adults had them but we children did not mind walking.
We walked barefooted and didn’t mind squishing through the mud. We kept up with the horses. We’d go to Queen Emma’s rock, which no one ever goes to now. It’s a great big rock in a bare spot. The legend is that they rested there before they went across the swamp. One of her retainers got out there and danced the hula. Eric also took us to Kawaikoi, a wonderful little pool. I took off to the top of the ride and I heard my first thrush. All the Hawaiian thrush had gone way in and there are none now. At Maluapoha we used to hear them every morning. I was thrilled with the thrush sound and every now and then we could here them in the woods in the ridges
It was an exciting time to have been to places without any road. I hope they never put a road around the island.