In a South Shore neighborhood of Po‘ipu, one residential home stands alone on a street populated with vacation rentals and condominiums — a property inhabited for over a century by dozens of Kimokeo descendants — the last, some claim, as
In a South Shore neighborhood of Po‘ipu, one residential home stands alone on a street populated with vacation rentals and condominiums — a property inhabited for over a century by dozens of Kimokeo descendants — the last, some claim, as the only Hawaiian name left on this bluff.
“All of our neighbors are from out-of-state,” said Makana Kia, great niece to James Kimo Kimokeo, representative Grand Marshall for the Koloa Plantation Days parade tomorrow.
Kimokeo, 85, lives in Anahola now, having built a home on Hawaiian Home Lands in 1996.
Chosen by parade chairman Teddy Blake because, ‘this is the oldest Hawaiian surname in Koloa,’ Kimokeo will be joined by his ohana tomorrow on a float leading the parade that kicks off at 10 a.m.
Born in Koloa and reared in Po‘ipu, he is one of nine children born at home in a birthing room at his tutu’s house. Growing up in Po‘ipu, Kimokeo remembers when all that separated his house from the sea was cactus and Lantana.
“Every time I’d come back there was less and less of it. They build over everything,” he said.
Kimokeo left Kaua‘i for the first time in 1942 to serve in the Navy.
“They was going to draft boys into the infantry and I thought, ‘heck, no way’ so I enlisted,” he said.
When he returned three years later he joined the Army Corps of Engineers as a deck hand. Kimokeo praises the mentoring he received from the ship’s captain for the direction his life took.
“(Captain Robert W. Kern) asked me what my plans were,” Kimokeo recalled. “I didn’t finish high school. For four months the captain taught me — he set it up for me to go to nautical school in Seattle.”
Kimokeo may have been catapulted from his island home at the tender age of 18, but Kaua‘i seemed to follow him on his journey. When word came in 1995 that the Hokuleia would visit a near-by port, he applied to captain the tug boat that would escort her from Estoria, Oregon to Vancouver, B.C. That’s when he met fellow Kaua‘i boy Teddy Blake.
“I was on the Hokuleia when the tug boat was escorting her into harbor,” Blake recalled. “I took one look at Kimokeo and knew he was Hawaiian.”
After spending 30 years captaining boats for the Army Corps of Engineers in Oregon he retired in 1996. He returned to Kaua‘i with his wife, Ida Kaneau of Kona, to build their home on Hawaiian Home Lands in Anahola. Ida died after 47 years of marriage.
“The breast cancer got her,” he said.
Today, still stricken with wanderlust, Kimokeo travels internationally — having just returned from a trip to the Marqueses Islands.
“I go to Marqueses because they tell me that is where Hawaiians started,” he said.
Still brimming with vitality and humor, he attributes his longevity to the fact that he never stops moving.
“I keep moving because I’m scared of the wheelchair,” he laughed.
When he’s not in flight to some exotic place, Kimokeo devotes time to preserving Kaua‘i open spaces.
“I was 40 years away and now trying to preserve what we can,” he said.
One passion is for Kaneiolouma Heiau, the only remaining makahiki grounds on Kaua‘i, according to Blake.
“Brenneke’s parking lot is the area where the canoes would come in for makahiki,” Blake said. “Makahiki was a time of games rather then warring.”
Kimokeo and Blake are working on having Kaneiolouma registered for its historical recognition.
“Uncle Jimmy is our living treasure,” Blake said. “Who else has those memories of Kaneiolouma.”
