04/03/2002

By MARY ELLEN BOTTER, The Dallas Morning News

Gloria and Richard Marks, operators of Damien Tours. (Photo by Mary Ellen Botter, The Dallas Morning News)

But no golf rounds will be played out here, only a chapter of history born in fear, blighted by lawlessness, cruelty and despair – and redeemed by a young Belgian priest's self-sacrifice.

Until 1969, this rocky cape was Hawaii's place of banishment for those with leprosy, also called Hansen's disease. A century and a half ago – long before the 1940s brought drugs that rendered the chronic disease treatable and sufferers noncontagious – people with advanced leprosy, sometimes those only suspected of having the disease, were rounded up (often by bounty hunters who collected $5 to $10 a head) and left here.

"You have to realize they were sent here to die," says Tom Workman, superintendent of Kalaupapa National Historical Park, created in 1980 to preserve the story and artifacts of this place.

The historical park encompasses the old townsite of Kalawao (kah-la-WAH-oh), where the devoted ministered, and the newer village of Kalaupapa (kah-LAU-pah-pah), about three miles away across the peninsula. About 10,000 visitors come each year, most drawn by the story of the servant priest. Their only access to where he worked is aboard Damien Tours' rust-mottled surplus school bus.

Near Judd Park, the farthest stop of the four-hour tour, waves tumble onto the stony beach of the bay at Kalawao. Ocean blues and tropical greens blend exquisitely, and it's nearly impossible to believe so spectacular a place could be linked to tragedy.

Banished by law

Tens of dozens of graves lie beside the road from Kalaupapa town to the peninsula's small airport. (Photo by Mary Ellen Botter, The Dallas Morning News)

Hawaiians generally accepted leprosy as just one more sickness among many. But not all did. Pressure mounted to have the sufferers quarantined away from society. The idea wasn't unprecedented. From biblical times lepers – a term now considered dehumanizing – had been cast out of their communities, labeled unclean and virtually unhelped.

Kalaupapa Peninsula seemed the perfect place to isolate the sick. The land was fertile – officials figured exiles could farm and feed themselves – and the nearly perpendicular cliffs behind it were a natural wall between the outcasts and the rest of Molokai.

Despite intentions not altogether heartless (the Board of Health budgeted half of its annual budget to set up the colony), benign solitude wasn't the reality.

People torn from family and friends descended into hopelessness, many exiles were too ill to care for themselves, much less farm, and despair brewed brawling, drunkenness and immorality. Ships' captains, afraid to come close to shore and eager to be rid of their diseased cargo, dumped people into that picturesque bay. They sank, or swam to their exile.

Father Damien, age 33; the year he arrived in Kalaupapa, Hawaii. (Photo from Damien Museum and Archives)

"He was cut off from his [religious] community ... with all those sick people," says Irene Letoto, director of Damien Museum and Archives in Honolulu. "Nobody spoke Flemish. There was no cheese, no bread unless he baked it himself. It was a never-ending job. He wasn't a nurse or a doctor, but he had to tend to people's wounds.

"I don't think there's anybody ... other than Mother Teresa that can equal his dedication," she says.

Going against medical advice of the time, Father Damien touched his flock, fed them, ate from their dishes. He labored to relieve their despair and give them dignity.

His persistent advocacy for their care angered some in his church and many non-Catholics. And when his work drew the world's attention, he was accused of lacking humility.

Tranquil by design

The shelters that Father Damien built are gone, but the church that he crafted with limited hand tools remains. Expanded from a small chapel, dove-white St. Philomena is compact and sturdy, like its builder. The interior is cool green and narrow, its altar modestly ornamented. Walls are painted to appear that they're made of closely fitted stones.

Beside the church in a site he chose is Father Damien's grave. Diagnosed in 1885 with leprosy, the priest died of the disease in 1889 at age 49. His body was exhumed and returned to Belgium in 1936, but his right hand was shipped back and interred in the iron-fenced grave. Brother Joseph Dutton, a layman and Damien ally who worked at Kalawao and Kalaupapa from 1886 to 1930, lies nearby. The grave of Mother Marianne Cope, the strong third member of the colony's leadership trinity, is buried in Kalaupapa. The nun's work on Molokai spanned 30 years, ending with her death in 1918.

Only the rock foundations remain of a school for boys, a hospital and other Damien-era buildings. When the last original residents in the fishing village of Kalaupapa left in 1895, the exile colony began moving from Kalawao to warmer, drier Kalaupapa. Everything that could be used or reused was taken with them.

Father Damien's friends mourned after his painful, tortured death (untreated, leprosy attacks the nervous system, affecting skin and membranes, crippling limbs and sometimes causing blindness). His enemies were relieved to be free of the activist.

More than a century after he died, Father Damien has been declared "blessed," one step from sainthood. And his love and commitment echo in the tranquil life of Kalaupapa.

Peaceful but busy

Despite the presence of the park service and control by the state board of health, Kalaupapa remains an active community. It's the home of 42 Hansen's patients who since isolation laws were abolished in 1969 have been free to leave, but choose to live in the settlement.

"Life outside is very different," says Gloria Marks, who with her husband, Richard, owns Damien Tours. "If you go slow, they run you over."

Caregivers and park service staff bring the population to about 100. At the settlement's height, it was about 1,100.

The tour bus grinds to a halt in the village, and for almost a half-hour visitors walk nearby or chat with Mrs. Marks. She's friendly and talkative, and it eventually dawns on listeners that she isn't an outsider. She's part of the Hansen's community – for more than 30 years, she says. Her husband has been here even longer, since 1956.

New cases now are treated as outpatients wherever they're diagnosed, and Kalaupapa receives no new residents. Those here are in their 60s and older, she says, and they "feel the squeeze" of the shrinking population.

But although "some ... refer to our community as a 'dying' community, ... we still kicking," she says with a smile.

The Lion's Club is active, poker games are popular, three denominations hold services, and residents are devoted pet owners.

"Because there are no children here [current laws bar 16 and younger], people turn to their animals," Mrs. Marks says. "They are their children."

Kalaupapa, the park superintendent says, is "no different than any other community, other than you're part of living history."

About 200 historical structures have been identified in the park, says Mr. Workman, and the park service has begun a year-and-a-half-long preservation program for 24. A curatorial center will also be built for archiving artifacts.

St. Francis Church stands out in the area where the tour pauses, and it's tempting to linger in the aging structure's calm interior aglow with sunlight and Father Joseph Hendriks' warm welcome. Restoration progresses as donations allow, he says. A handful of items honoring the late priest are displayed in the small Father Damien Memorial Hall next door.

It's look-but-don't-buy at Kalaupapa's store. "Our supplies are very limited," says Mrs. Marks, and the stocks are reserved for patients.

In earlier days, family members who came to Molokai to visit patients saw them in Separation House, a building split down the middle by heavy wire fencing. "It was like going to visit a prisoner," Mr. Workman says.

Also remaining are the visitor quarters. No one could come without a permit, and the rule still stands, he says.

The wharf adjacent to St. Francis is the focus in mid-July of Barge Day, the one time each year when major supplies arrive at Kalaupapa.

Ships left arriving leprosy exiles at the scenic and wave-washed bay at Kalawao. Some were simply pushed overboard.

"It's a big event here," Mr. Workman says. The tone is festive and everyone gathers to watch.

The scene of forklifts working quickly in unison to offload building supplies, vehicles, fuel and goods for the store crackles with excitement and feeds conversation later at Elaine's Place, the local watering hole. Partly indoor, partly outdoor, Elaine's runs on the honor system: "Please shut off the lights, last to leave the store," a sign asks.

Visitors reboard the bus and ride past neat wood-sided houses painted in cheerful colors. At the one-room museum and bookstore where it stops again, eating utensils customized for patients' crippled hands are displayed beside doilies crocheted despite disabilities. Volunteers from among the patients work the cash box and stamp buyers' postcards and books with the date. Yes, they seem to say, you were here with us.

Not far from the airport, the bus rattles toward what appears from a distance to be a field of gray boulders beside the road. Closer, they prove to be gravestones – tens of dozens of them – some hand-formed, hand-decorated concrete darkened by weather, but still a readable record of life and passing.

When the last of Kalaupapa's patients joins this eternal community, the park service will take full responsibility for the historical sites.

"That's why the park service is here: to carry on and to tell the story of what went on," says Mr. Workman. "It's part of our national heritage."