KOLOA — When you came here before, you needed a sickle and machete, said Roy Murata, Wailua, Thursday during a visit to the Koloa Cemetery. “Back in the 1960s, this section was overgrown with lantana and koa,” Murata said. “You
KOLOA — When you came here before, you needed a sickle and machete, said Roy Murata, Wailua, Thursday during a visit to the Koloa Cemetery.
“Back in the 1960s, this section was overgrown with lantana and koa,” Murata said. “You had … to hack your way to the graves you needed to visit.”
Murata, who said his parents are buried in one of the older sections of the cemetery administered by the county’s Department of Parks and Recreation, said his visit Thursday was to accompany his sister’s family who was visiting from O‘ahu.
“You have to come with people,” the retired Wailua resident said. “A lot of the (Japanese) graves are marked only in Japanese writing, and who knows how to read Japanese today? The only way people know how to find the graves is to come with someone who knows.”
But the ravages of age has taken its toll on the Wailua man who walked with the aid of a cane, resting in the shade of an invasive brassia, or Octopus Tree, along the side of a paved road separating the older section of the cemetery from the newer section while his visiting O‘ahu family picked their way through crunching gravel, stopping off to place floral offerings at their family’s graves.
“The newer section is on the upper part,” Murata said.
“You can tell because of the gravestones. That section used to be all sugar cane fields. There was a building here, too, at one time. I don’t even know when it fell down.”
He looked at the abundance of albesia trees growing in the adjacent pasture, which has taken over from the former sugar cane cultivation, his movements restricted by his cane. “Once, we had to deal with lantana and koa,” he said. “Today, we have these trees that people say we’re going to burn to make fuel.”
The reaches of the cemetery extends beyond the groomed section, older graves being marked by eroding concrete work and palm trees, which appear to flourish under the canopy of brassia and kamani trees.
Located on Alaneo Road off of Maluhia Road entering Koloa Town, the gates to the Koloa Cemetery is open Mondays through Fridays from 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday hours are from 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
