Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 3, Number 7, 1 July 1986 — Kawaiahao Plans New Documentation [ARTICLE]

Kawaiahao Plans New Documentation

By Nanette Napoleon Pumell Director, Cemetery Research Project A eall has been issued to all surviving members and friends of those people who are buried in the Kawaiahao Church Cemetery for burial information so that documentation ean be recorded onee more of those who are buried there. This is a volunteer project undertaken by John (Bubba) Kahooilihala and his wife, Doreen who supervise the maintenance of the churchandcemetery. They need your kokua. Call them at the church, 533-6566 or 536-9144. A fire swept through the upstairs business office of the church around 1915 and destroyed many valuable documents stored there, including all of the cemetery burial records. Fifty-seven years later in 1972, church member Clorinda Low Lucas formed a committee to undertake the difficult task of trying to recreate those records by talking to surviving family members. The committee spent six years collecting information, and even discovered a large survey map drawn in 1912 when suddenly the new records disappeared. Again, the records were lost. Now, 71 years after the original fire, the Kahooilihalas are trying onee more to reestablish those records. They hope it will not take as long as six years this time. "We get calls all the time from people working on their genealogies who want to know if someone in their family is buried here, but we can't help them mueh because all the records were burned in the fire," Kahooilihala said. In addition to calls from surviving family members and friends, the eouple will also be interviewing family members who visit the cemetery throughout the year or longer if need be. Kahooilihala is currently in the process of developing plans to beautify the cemetery grounds and would like to see family members take a greater interest in maintaining their own gravesites. Your kokua is needed. If you have any burial information, eall the numbers listed above.