In August of 1948, Hanama‘ulu residents Joe Sa and Sakichi Higashi, both recently retired employees of Lihu‘e Plantation, reminisced about the old days. Born in Madeira, Portugal in 1881, Sa remembered that jobs were hard to come by when he
In August of 1948, Hanama‘ulu residents Joe Sa and Sakichi Higashi, both recently retired employees of Lihu‘e Plantation, reminisced about the old days.
Born in Madeira, Portugal in 1881, Sa remembered that jobs were hard to come by when he was a young man there. When there was no work to be found, he made wooden chairs, spending long hours crafting them.
“And what did you get for one chair?” he said. “Only 35 cents.”
He decided to seek a better life. In 1909, he and his wife, Antonia Jesus, set sail for the Hawaiian Islands on a large boat.
The Panama Canal had not yet been completed, so the boat sailed the stormy, dangerous passage around Cape Horn on its 48-day voyage to Hawai‘i.
“Sometimes, we were lucky to make a mile during the day, trying to buck our way past Cape Stiff,” he said.
Sa went to work for Kealia’s Makee Sugar Co. as a cane cutter. Later, he became a carpenter for Lihu‘e Plantation. The Sas had five children and many grandchildren.
Sakichi Higashi, who also retired as a carpenter, was born in Yamaguchi-Ken, Japan, in 1881 and was educated there. In 1903, he immigrated to Kaua‘i, where he married Kiku Morita of Kilauea, with whom he had seven children.
Thinking of the old days and pointing to the main Macadam road running through Hanama‘ulu, he said, “The roads were something after it had rained. Why, the road here used to get so muddy that buggies had trouble moving. Mud came up to the hubs of the wheels. It was a day’s journey to get from Hanama‘ulu to Kealia, and if you lost a wheel on the buggy, it took a day to get help.”
