I was born Oct. 8, 1923, in Honolulu and was brought to Kaua‘i in December of that year for my grandparents and great-grandparents to look over. While in Kaua‘i the family decided to have me baptized. Since there was no
I was born Oct. 8, 1923, in Honolulu and was brought to Kaua‘i in December of that year for my grandparents and great-grandparents to look over. While in Kaua‘i the family decided to have me baptized.
Since there was no regular Episcopal Priest on Kaua‘i, I was baptized by a circuit rider from Honolulu by the name Carver on Christmas day at my great grandparent’s home in Lihu’e. I was the only great grandchild he ever saw because he died in April of 1924.
It wasn’t until 1925 when All Saints Church was started was there an Episcopal Church on Kaua‘i. There was a rumor that the Calvinistic members of the Rice and Wilcox families said, “No Episcopal Church on the Lihu’e side of the Wailua River”. The Aunts Elsie and Mabel Wilcox have vehemently refuted this story.
My grandmother Mrs. Charles Rice and Nancy’s grandparents were the ones who started the Episcopal Church on Kaua‘i. My brother Charles and I were the two little boys who unveiled the “Stained Glass Window” over the altar.
In 1999 while Nancy and I were on our way down the Mississippi, we went ashore in Vicksburg and went into Trinity Episcopal Church there and there was the same “Stained Glass Window” as that one on Kaua‘i. When we moved back to Kaua‘i in 1929 my mother, Charles and I joined All Saints Church, but we hardly ever got to church.
My steady church going started in 1937 when I went to Iolani School as a boarder. My uncle Reginald Carter was the organist at St. Andrews and I was recruited into the Boys Choir. After marching and singing the opening hymn, we boys sat on the left side in front of the men and the women sat on the right side so we were under the watchful eyes and no fooling around. We wore purple robes with white surplices and little starched white collars cute little purple bow ties.
At Iolani we had Chapel twice a week for seven years that I was there. There were years that we boarders would have “Morning Prayer” before breakfast and Vespers before supper in the evenings. In my Jr. and Sr. year I lived with Father Bray our football, basketball and baseball coach. A couple of times a month Father Bray would wake me at 5:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning saying that his Acolyte was sick and would I come with him to assist him. He had the early service at St. Marks in Kapahulu.
After the first time, I looked forward to assisting him at that early service because the reward was breakfast with him at the Alexander Young Hotel before going to the 9:30 service at St. Andrews.
When I was a freshman in High School I took it upon myself to get confirmed into the Episcopal Church. There were several of us that had Bishop Littell put his hands on our heads and said the right things. And on Sunday December 7th 1941 when I was half way through my senior year, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. This ended my formal education for several years.
After three years I finally was drafted and spent 19 months in the Army, most of the time on the island of Shemya in the Aleutian Islands. I was finally discharged out of the Army and on the strength of my two younger brothers I was accepted by Menlo Junior College on a probational basis.
I couldn’t equal my brothers “A” average but I got a “B” average for the Spring semester of 1947 and also lettered in baseball. After school was out Charlie and I flew back to Kaua‘i for the first time in over two years. That summer I met Nancy Sloggett and within three weeks I persuaded her to marry me! She was going to go to Pine Manor Jr. College in the fall and I was going back to Menlo for another year. It didn’t happen that way.
We came home early, got married in June and had 60 wonderful years together. After the wedding the children started coming and soon we had two boys and two girls. And soon it was time for Sunday school. With four kids to get ready, All Saints was too far away so we started to go to the Congregational Church in Lihu’e and soon both Nancy and I were teaching Sunday school.
I became the Head of Sunday school and with that came a seat on the Board of Deacons. We had never signed up to become members of the congregation but here I was a Deacon. Every year in November and December they would have an all member canvass to collect pledges for the next year. Dr. Peter Kim and I were always partners and it seemed like we got the hardest nuts to crack. Some of the pledges were only $200 for the whole year. This was because everybody knew that the two Wilcox sisters would always make up the difference. Finally some brave souls at All Saints wanted to start a church in Lihu’e and St. Michaels and All Angels was born. The Goodale family moved over to the Episcopal Church posthaste. We were now faced with an annual pledge and a building fund payment. We suffered through every two years and a new man would arrive to take the place of the one we were just getting to know well.
One Sunday morning we came to church and there was this young man seated in front of me with a full black beard. After church Mary Mildred Jones asked me if that was our new pastor and I could not enlighten because I didn’t know myself, but we soon found out that he was Jan Rudinoff our new Pastor. This was the start of over thirty years of Jan through thick and thin.
In 1988 Jan got an architect named Steve Shackleton to come up with some plans for a new church for us. At the annual meeting of 1989, Jan, Ron Agor and I stood before the congregation and presented the plans for the new church. It took over two hours to convince the group that this was feasible. I was the chairman of almost everything connected to the project: overall chair, fundraising and inspection of the workmanship.
Curtis Law was our contractor. We got the church built under budget and, well under the deadline. The vicar, Jan wanted a Bell Tower and I started teasing him that this was “Jan’s last erection”. But he turned the tables on me and had my children pay for the tower so that it was now my you know what. Since we had the church building all paid for we decided to build the administration building. Now we had an eight hundred thousand dollar mortgage.
The rental of the upstairs paid the mortgage down so that when Jan wanted to retire after years as Vicar and the Rector, we were able to burn the mortgage and bury the ashes in the Columbarium. My education in giving started very young. It was my Grandparents influence that got me started. (I’ve shared this story). Every Christmas they would fill large paper sacks with oranges and apples some cheap candy and a present for every child whose parents worked for them on the Plantation or Dairy. We children got to help with the fruit.
A couple of days before Christmas the Plantation Ranch would slaughter a “pipi” and it would be cut up and distributed to all employees working for Wm Hyde Rice Ltd. And we would go through the camps and give out the brown bags to all the children under twelve. After Nancy and I were married we would still go and help fill the bags for distribution.
In the early days there would be fund drives for all the regular non-profits and the sum usually given was one dollar. When the Red Feather came along and consolidated all the non-profits, it was pretty hard to get more than a dollar from the people. With Nancy and I this consolidation was a godsend. All we had to do was to write one check. Our big expenses were our children’s education. It seemed like forever but finally one by one all of our children finished college and got jobs. Now we were free to really give.
When the National Tropical Botanical Garden built the new Botanical Research Center we put in a Photovoltaic system on the roof. Several of the Trustees raised the money to pay for the system. The money we spent or loaned to the Garden, we were to get a tax benefit. I couldn’t qualify because I gave too much money to charity. My accountant told me to cut back on my giving for a while. So now, Father Bill leave me alone.
