Molokai History:
(from “Pioneers of the Faith: History of the Catholic Mission in Hawaii (1827-1940)” by Robert Schoofs, SS.CC., Sturgis Printing Company, Inc., Honolulu, HI, 1978)
(continued from May 22)
When in the 1920’s both homesteading and pineapple were introduced to Molokai, the image of the Island’s plateau changed radically. Its wastelands were gradually turned into colorful and productive fields, dotted with numerous farms with red roofs amid luxuriant foliage and trees. Three towns were slowly being formed and linked together and with the capital, Kaunakakai, by excellent macadamized roads. Where heretofore there was silence and inactivity, now there was the zooming and clattering of autos and trucks and field machinery, and the frequent drone of airplanes overhead. It was a new, noisy world of tug and toil, of fray and fight, of life and laughter.
Early in the 1920’s the Honolulu Catholic Mission through Bishop Boeynaems applied for and was granted a two-acre lot in Hoolehua for church purposes. On this lot the Catholic Mission built a church and a rectory in October, 1928, under the supervision of Father Martin Dornbush of Kalaupapa, who for the next two months attended to the Hoolehua homesteaders.
(to be continued tomorrow)
Blessings, Pono and Pule!
Fr. Brian Guerrini, ss.cc.
Priest
Molokai