Residents of the one-time Puhi Camp held one last year. And residents of the one-time Ahukini Camp by the Lihu‘e Airport held one as well last year.
And now the residents of the one-time Hanama‘ulu Camp are going to hold one: a reunion to bring together generations of families, to pay tribute to old-timers, to relive memories of by-gone plantation days, and to infuse a new spirit into the old town.
Former and current residents of the camp and Hanama‘ulu town and others met at the Thy Word Ministries Christian Fellowship-Lihue church in Hanama‘ulu on April 1 to plan for the reunion. It is scheduled to be held on July 15 to July 16, 2005 at the Peter Rayno Sr. Park in Hanama‘ulu.
“We want to try to galvanize the town spirit, get everybody to be proud of Hanama‘ulu, of their roots,” said Eddie Sarita, a longtime Hanama‘ulu resident currently the manager of the Kauai War Memorial Convention Hall in Lihu‘e.
Sarita said more than a year of planning is needed to carry out a successful event.
“We want to build on the history of the town, its roots. It will be for people who were born and raised there, to tell their stories,” Sarita said. “Cleaning the (old Hanama‘ulu) cemetery (in recent years) was the start.”
The old cemetery had been neglected for years, and had become overgrown with brush. But a handful of Hanama‘ulu residents spent weekends clearing the site, located mauka of the 7-Eleven store in Hanama‘ulu. As a result, family members are now able to visit family grave sites at the cemetery.
Some of the key reunion planners who attended the April 1 meeting were Rocky and Dely Sasaki; William Sasil; Cayetano “Sonny” Gerardo, a retired Civil Defense director for Kaua‘i County; Remy and Eddie Chinen; Rena Alao, the chairperson of the Ahukini reunion; Flo Abrams; Vic Villon; and Neal and Mildred Rapozo.
Planners talked about staging day-long events, dinner and a parade, and setting up a photo display, Sarita said.
The group would like more folks to come out and discuss their vision for the reunion, Sarita said.
A meeting is scheduled to be held at 6 p.m. on the first Thursday of every month at Thy World Ministries in Hanama‘ulu, Sarita said.
“We are really looking to make this a real exciting event,” Sarita said. Gerardo is expected to help create a Web site for the event, to inform former camp residents who now live on the Mainland or elsewhere about the celebration.
In connection with the reunion, an historian will be solicited to document the history of Hanama‘ulu town, Sarita said.
Sarita, a former county councilmember, said he doesn’t know when the plantation camp came into being, but noted that it existed when his maternal grandfather, Zacharias Labez, came from the Philippines to Kaua‘i in 1910, and began working for Lihue Plantation.
He served as a camp policeman and as a luna/ field supervisor, Sarita said.
Sarita’s father, Gaudencio Sarita, came to Kaua‘i from the Philippines in 1921, and worked for Kilauea Plantation until 1923. The following year, he began work for Lihue Plantation in a career that spanned more than 40 years, Sarita said.
Sarita said the Lihue Plantation camps were located in areas where the 7-Eleven store in Hanama‘ulu is located today, and in areas mauka of Kalepa Village, a housing development operated by Kaua‘i County, and mauka of Hanama‘ulu store.
All the camp homes were owned by Lihue Plantation, and everyone mostly worked for the company and knew each other, Sarita said.
“When I graduated from Hanama‘ulu School in 1956, there were only 13 people in my graduating class,” he said. At the time the school boasted 100 students.
Sarita said it was his understanding King Kaumuali‘i Elementary School now boasts 500. The school had more students before Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School in Puhi and Kapa‘a Middle School in Kapa‘a, opened.
That took sixth graders away from King Kaumuali‘i.
The plantation camps were torn down in the late 1950s and early 1960s, as Lihue Plantation got out of the business of subsidized housing, Sarita said.
The sugar company developed subdivisions in Hanama‘ulu town, with homes bought mostly by Lihue Plantation workers.
“The community was small, but tight (resulting in the forging of lifetime friendships),” Sarita said. “It was a small plantation town when I grew up there.”
He recalled his home was among the first to be fitted with telephones. When someone called his home to get in touch with his neighbor, Sarita would call out for the neighbor to come to his home to catch the call.
Today, Hanama‘ulu town consists of 1,000 households.
The plantation camp dwellers were proud to work for Lihue Plantation, which grew as it absorbed other plantations like the Hanama‘ulu Plantation and Makee Plantation Company in East Kaua‘i.
Lihue Plantation workers patronized the Hanama‘ulu Store and the Hanama‘ulu Cafe, a fixture in the community since the 1920s.
“We didn’t have government programs like we do today, because the plantations provided us with mostly everything we needed, stores, recreational facilities,” Sarita said.
Peter Rayno Sr. Park, for instance, is now a county facility, but at one time, it was owned by Lihue Plantation, Sarita said.
Along with other Hawai‘i-based sugar companies that were no longer able to compete in the world sugar market, Lihue Plantation closed its mill in 2000 after being in business for 151 years.
For more information on the planned Hanama‘ulu Camp reunion celebration, please contact Sarita at 245-5359.
Staff Writer Lester Chang may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) or mailto:lchang@pulitzer.net.
