This woman’s life devoted to the island
LIHU’E — Being the founder of the Kaua’i Museum should be enough to warrant
someone consideration as one of the island’s most influential people of the
20th century.
But the late Juliet Rice Wichman was so much
more.
Hawaiiana expert. Living Treasure of Kaua’i. Past director of Garden
Island Motors. Benefactor to several authors and an author herself. State Board
of Education member.
World traveler. Founder of the Hawai’i branch of the
American Red Cross. First director, trustee, director emeritus of Kaua’i
Museum. First life member of the Friends of the Kaua’i Museum. Trustee of the
National Tropical Botanical Garden. Botany expert. Still more.
Of all her
accomplishments, though, the ones she was most proud of were her 14
grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.
“Her vision of the land, her
stewardship concepts, too, and her respect for the Hawaiian culture, were
awesome,” said grandson Randy Wichman.
Up until the time of her death in
1987, the daughter of Charles A. and Grace King Rice led an active life. When
she died, she was working on a book based on the legend of Pele, the Hawaiian
goddess of fire and the volcanoes.
Ironically, Pele plays a role in one of
her more notable acts of courage to save a piece of island history.
In the
early 1950s, recalls her son, Frederick Bruce Wichman, county workers in search
of fill for construction projects had their eyes on a rock wall near Ke’e Beach
Park at the end of Kuhio Highway in Ha’ena, near the start of the Kalalau
Trail, that is believed to be part of the house site of Lohiau, mortal love
interest of Pele.
The legend is that Lohiau ended up marrying Hi’iaka,
Pele’s sister, and the couple lived happily ever at Ha’ena, Frederick Bruce
Wichman said. Another version is that after Lohiau failed to return Pele’s love
and fell instead for Hi’iaka, Pele burned Lohiau to death.
In real life,
John Hanohano of the county came by the family’s Ha’ena home to tell Juliet
Rice Wichman that a bulldozer and trucks were on their way to the end of the
road to take down Lohiau’s house site.
“So she went down there, and what
she did was just go and stand with her back to the wall, and just told the
people they would have to take her first with the bulldozer before she’d
leave,” Frederick Bruce Wichman said.
“So she stood them off until they
finally got somebody out from Lihu’e and called the whole thing off,” he
said.
The rock wall remains, now “happily buried under philodendron,” he
laughed.
This singular act was a main basis for Princeville’s Maka’ala
Ka’aumoana’s nominating Juliet Rice Wichman as one of the island’s
most-influential people in the current century.
“She was an active woman.
At age 71, she led 18 family members on a tour through Africa, including
photographic safaris through Kenya and Tanzania,” said David Penhallow.
It
was Juliet Rice Wichman who offered Penhallow the chance to become director of
the Kaua’i Museum, an offer he didn’t refuse. “She was a very good friend,”
said Penhallow, who went to Africa with Wichman.
The idea of cultural
tourism, endorsed by Penhallow when he was director of the county Office of
Economic Development, and later administrative assistant under Mayor Tony
Kunimura, came largely from Wichman’s vision, he said.
The granddaughter
of William Hyde and Mary Rice, Juliet Rice Wichman was born in Honolulu in
1901, and educated largely on the Mainland (including time at Vassar College),
though she always had Kaua’i on her mind and in her heart.
“Philanthropist,
big-time,” is how Randy Wichman describes her. A lesser-known accomplishment is
the fact that she paid tuition and expenses for many Kauaians to attend
colleges in Honolulu and on the Mainland, Wichman said.
“Our family’s
totally into education and history,” and she believed it important to “put her
money where her mouth is,” he said.
“She helped so many people,” he said.
“I owe it all to her. Her love and care were awesome,” he added.
“A lot of
my love of history and Hawaiiana stemmed through her and her library. She was
vitally important to me, and I still miss her a lot,” he said.
Among many
other accomplishments, she was a life member of the Wilcox Hospital Auxiliary,
Kaua’i School Advisory Council member, member of the Daughters of Hawai’i,
Kaua’i Historical Society, Mokihana Club, and Honolulu Academy of
Arts.
When she and George H. Moody turned a section of the Rockefeller
Center into a lush Hawaiian garden for the Garden Club of Honolulu and Hawai’i
Visitors Bureau, she was named Woman of the Month in New York City.
For
those and other deeds, she was made an honorary member of the Garden Club of
Honolulu.
A gifted arranger of flowers and painter of watercolors (mostly
plants), she is also the author of “Early Kaua’i Hospitality,” “Amelia,” and
“Moki Learns to Fish,” as well as works of poetry published in the American
Poetry Journal and other publications.
She also wrote several articles on
planting techniques and traditions, as well as “Hawaiian Flower Arrangement”
for House and Garden magazine.
“She has always been an inquisitive,
questioning mind. She was a woman of the present,” said
Penhallow.
Logically, she was included in a 1960s version of “Who’s Who in
Hawai’i.”
Wichman put up the money for Ed Joesting to write his book,
“Kaua’i, A Separate Kingdom,” which he penned while staying at the Wichman home
in Ha’ena. She also bankrolled “Hawaiian Calabashes,” a book by Irving
Jenkins.
According to grandson Randy Wichman, she helped countless other
people start businesses on the island with her financial backing.
While
others in her era tried to take the quick road to riches, she was much more
conservative, Wichman said. Her approach paid off with a portfolio including
land holdings that would impress even the most akamai Wall Street whiz.
And
her wealth was not to be hoarded by her or anyone else in the family.
“She
was a very generous person, both with information and with money,” Penhallow
said.
While her philanthropy was the stuff of legend, she also showed a
genuine care for the island and her people.
When the devastating tsunami of
March, 1957, struck the island, she provided food and housing for several days
for 60 people stranded at Ha’ena by the storm, until outside help could
arrive.
In her letter nominating Wichman for the most-influential honor,
Ka’aumoana tells of glowing affection for the woman and her works.
“Our
history and future are locked in our understanding of our plants, and Juliet
Rice Wichman was a person who knew this before others,” Ka’aumoana
said.
“She also traded land she owned for what is now Limahuli Garden,
because she recognized the cultural and horticultural value of the valley. She
began in spirit and intent what is now the National Tropical Botanical Garden
by preserving a place and ethic for its birth,” Ka’aumoana wrote. Chipper
Wichman inherited his grandmother’s love for plants, Penhallow said.
Randy
Wichman is quick to point out that his grandmother and family never sold or
made any money off of its Kaua’i lands.
Juliet Rice Wichman had three
sons: Holbrook “Hoby” Wichman Goodale, a rancher, philanthropist and retired
entrepreneur and businessman; Charles Wichman, a Honolulu attorney; and
Frederick Bruce Wichman, an author and another Living Treasure of
Kaua’i.
Her first husband, and the father of Goodale and Charles Wichman,
was Holbrook Goodale, a pilot on the Pan Am Clipper ships who died in a crash
at Ke’ehi Lagoon on O’ahu.
She then remarried Frederick Warren Wichman,
father of Frederick Bruce Wichman. F.W. Wichman is Randy Wichman’s grandfather.
Together, Mr. and Mrs. F.W. Wichman adopted Goodale and Charles
Wichman.
When Goodale was 21, he legally changed his name to his current
name, to honor his birth father, Randy Wichman said.
As could be expected,
the names of people who signed the book at Juliet Rice Wichman’s funeral
services reads like a “Who’s Who” in Hawai’i culture, government, politics,
business, and most other areas, Wichman recalls.
A monument in her honor
was erected in the Lihu’e Cemetery. Her ashes were scattered over Ha’ena, as
was her wish, he said.
“She was the best, a matriarch woman. She definitely
had the entire family under her wing,” Randy Wichman said.
For all her
accomplishments, for her role in founding and continuing the work of the Kaua’i
Museum, and in her honor, the former Hawaiian Heritage Gallery at the museum
was renamed the Juliet Rice Wichman Gallery.
A display on the life of
Juliet Rich Wichman is just off the main lobby of the museum now through July
13, 2000. The museum is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.a
