Mabel Leilani Smyth

Pālama, a sleepy neighborhood of neat little cottages and taro patches, was home to mostly working-class Hawaiian families; on June 1, 1896, a chapel was built and presented to Central Union Church.

Social worker James Arthur Rath, Sr and his wife, Ragna Helsher Rath, turned Pālama Chapel into Pālama Settlement (in September 1906,) a chartered, independent, non-sectarian organization.

The Raths established a day-camp for children with tuberculosis, a pure milk depot, a day nursery, a night school, low-rent housing and the Territory’s first public nursing department.

Public health nursing was started in Hawaiʻi by the Free Kindergarten and Children's Aid Association in 1897, when Mrs. Alice (Haviland) Thompson, nurse at Kamehameha School, volunteered her services to work in the Kindergartens in Honolulu.

In 1900, as Honolulu health officials attempted to rid the nearby Chinatown area of bubonic plague, fire destroyed a four-block section. The Pālama chapel's staff located housing for many of the displaced and took care of the injured and children. It also ministered to the needs of immigrants who moved into the Pālama area soon after arriving in the Islands.

In 1908 the College Club (a voluntary civic association) became interested in the tuberculosis problem and employed a nurse to do tuberculosis work in the City of Honolulu. Because it was thought that the nurse would have easier access to the district homes, she was given a Board of Health badge.

When the Tuberculosis Bureau was established in the Board of Health in 1910, the College Club nurse worked under the direction and supervision of that bureau until the latter part of 1910, when Pālama Settlement established itself as the centralized organization for public health nursing activities in Honolulu.

Shortly after, Pālama assumed the direction and supervision of all nurses and nursing activities in the city, including the two nurses employed in the Board of Health to do tuberculosis nursing.

By 1910, nine nurses were employed in the city: two by the Legislature, or Board of Health, one by the College Club, one by the Chinese Consul, one by the United Chinese Society, and four by Pālama Settlement.  (Smyth; The Friend, September 1, 1932)

Mabel Smyth, sometimes referenced as “Hawaiʻi’s Florence Nightingale” was Hawaiʻi’s first native Hawaiian public health nurse in the territory of Hawaii.

The daughter of a part-Hawaiian mother, Julia Goo Smyth (1867-1948,) and an Irish Ship Captain father, Halford Hamill Smyth (1851-1907,) Mabel was born in 1882 in Kona (some say she was born in Honolulu.) Halford Smyth died in 1907 leaving his wife with 5 children ranging in age from 8 to 16 (Mabel, the second oldest, was 15 at the time.)  (Connerton)

The family then moved to Honolulu where Smyth was involved with the Pālama Settlement, and she worked as a helper in the home of Pālama Head Worker, James Rath.

In 1912 Smyth traveled to the mainland with the Rath family, and in Springfield, MA she left them to begin her nursing training at the Springfield Hospital Training School.   (Connerton)

Smyth graduated from the Springfield Hospital training school in 1914, and returned to Hawaiʻi to begin work at the Pālama settlement in 1915.

When she applied for her position on the Pālama nursing service she explained her interest in district health nursing “One can do more good for humanity by working among the people district nurses do, and I naturally like to work among that class of people.”

In 1917 when the Board of Nursing established a licensure requirement – Smyth was #52 granted on August 30, 1917.

When Smyth took over as Pālama’s head nurse in 1918 there were seven Pālama dispensaries in the city, each with a nurse assigned to that district.  Nurses spent about 45-minutes of their day in the office, and the rest was divided between school visits, home visits and dispensary hours.  (Connerton)

Smythe went on to lead two of the most influential public health nursing services in the territory.  She was a charter member of the Hawaiʻi Nursing Association (called the Honolulu Nurses’ Club).  She joined the Honolulu chapter of the American Red Cross, and she served on the Hawaiʻi Board of Nursing.

In 1923, by act of the Legislature, the title of all nurses employed by the Board of Health, who were known as tuberculosis or school nurse, was changed to “public health nurse.” (Smyth; The Friend, September 1, 1932)

What is public health nursing?  “Public health nursing is an organized community service rendered by graduate nurses to the individual, family and community.  This service includes the interpretation for the correction of defects, prevention of disease and the promotion of health, and may include skilled care for the sick in their homes.”

“Our service is divided into four distinct divisions, namely, maternity, health supervision, morbidity (which includes non-communicable and communicable diseases) and social service.” (Smyth; The Friend, September 1, 1932)

In 1926, Smyth joined with other public health nurses to initiate the University of Hawaiʻi course on public health nursing.  This program was vital for local nurses whose only other option for public health training was to go to the mainland to study.  (Connerton)

When the Bureau of maternal and Child Health was organized in 1926, the nurse services expanded island wide.  Miss Claira Figely was the first supervisor of nurses, followed by Mabel Smyth who was Director of the Bureau of Maternal and Infant Hygiene.

Hawaiʻi was the first, and at times the only, US Territory or State that required formal Public Health training for employment as Public Health nurse.  (Tabrah)

In 1936 Smyth was scheduled for a small surgery.  She prepared her staff for a planned absence, but she never returned.  Smyth died at age 43, after 21 years of service to the public health community of Hawaii.

Smyth was widely mourned in the territory, and after her death a committee formed to establish a memorial to the “Hawaiian Florence Nightingale.”  Over $110,000 raised for her memorial building, with over 4,000-people making contributions.

On January 4 1941, the CW Dickey-designed ‘Mabel Smyth Memorial Building’ was dedicated on the Queens Hospital grounds at the corner of Punchbowl and Beretania Streets in Honolulu.  The new building was the headquarters for Hawaii’s professional nursing and medical organizations.

In 1991, ownership of the building and property passed from the Queen's Medical Center to the State of Hawaiʻi, in an exchange for nearby undeveloped land (Miller Street Triangle) that was needed by the hospital expansion.

In 1998, DLNR sold the building and adjacent grounds at a public auction for $5 million to the Queen Emma Foundation.  (PBN) Queen’s later renamed it ‘Queen’s Conference Center’ and relegated the Smyth name to the ‘Mabel Smyth Auditorium.’

The image shows the Mabel Smyth Memorial Building.  In addition, I have added other related images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

© 2014 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Peter Cushman Jones

Peter Cushman Jones was born in Boston on December 10, 1837; his father was Peter Cushman Jones, a Boston merchant, and his mother, Jane (Baldwin) Jones.

Young Jones was sent to the Boston Latin School and to “Bakers” School, in preparation for Harvard, but the lure of business was too strong, and as a young man he went to work as an office boy (at a salary of $50 a year.)

Led by an adventurous instinct, he set sail for Hawaiʻi, landing in the Islands on October 2, 1857 on the ship ‘John Gilpin.’

On the day of his arrival, as he passed up Fort Street jingling his 16-cents in his pocket, Henry P Carter, a clerk in C Brewer & Co, remarked, “Another Boston young man come to town to seek his fortune. We had better give him $10,000 and send him home again.”  (Story of Hawaiʻi)

Jones and Carter later became fast friends and close business associates for 20 years at Brewer.  Interestingly, Jones worked his way to the presidency of C Brewer & Co.

In 1892, with his son, Edwin A Jones, he formed a partnership under the name of The Hawaiian Safe Deposit and Investment Co., which has since become the Hawaiian Trust Co.

It was in 1893 that Jones, a 60-year-old businessman, persuaded close friends Joseph Ballard Atherton and Charles Montague Cooke to join him in organizing a new bank in the Islands.  Four years later on December 27, 1897, Bank of Hawaiʻi became the first chartered and incorporated bank to do business in the Republic of Hawaiʻi.

The charter was issued by James A King, Minister of the Interior of the Republic of Hawaiʻi, and signed by Sanford Ballard Dole, president of the Republic. Bank of Hawaiʻi operated its first office from a two-story wooden building in downtown Honolulu.  (BOH)

But all was not business for Jones; strongly religious, he served for years as a member of various church boards, a deacon of Central Union Church, president of the Board of the Hawaiian Evangelical Association and director of the YMCA.

Jones gave money for the establishment of the Portuguese Mission, and built the Pālama Chapel, which later grew to become Pālama Settlement, where social welfare work of every nature is still carried on.

A call into political activities came early in his career.

“I never cared for politics although I have always felt it my duty since I became a voter, to cast my vote for those I believed to be the best men, and at all times during the reign of Kalākaua, I felt that it was safe to vote against his followers.”  (Jones, LDS-org)

He was sent to Washington, DC, as the bearer of dispatches from the kingdom having to do with the final signing of the Reciprocity Treaty, which gave Hawaiʻi free trade with the United States.

On November 8, 1892, Queen Liliʻuokalani appointed him Minister of Finance. He was a member of the Wilcox-Jones cabinet until January 12, 1893.

(That cabinet resisted the distillery, lottery, and opium bills, and was dismissed on January 12, 1893 when a Noble of the Reform Party switched allegiance, allowing the Queen to dismiss the cabinet that was preventing her from passing those bills.)

Mr. Jones was an influential figure in the revolution and served on the executive and advisory council of the provisional government.

He helped take over the government building including the treasury and financial records. All four of the Queen's cabinet ministers came to the government building and agreed to turn over the station house and barracks to the Provisional Government.  (Morgan Report)

In testimony in the Morgan Report, Jones stated, “It took about ten minutes to read the proclamation of the Provisional Government, which was read from the steps of the government building facing the Palace. During that 10 minutes about 50-60 armed men supporting the revolution arrived. Within 30 minutes there were 150-200 armed men. The reading of the proclamation finished at 2:45 on January 17.”

When later questioned about these events, "Senator Frye asked. ‘You were at the Government building frequently. Did you ever see, during this revolution, any of the American soldiers marching on the streets?’ Mr. Jones. ‘No.’”

“The Chairman. ‘Did you, as a member of the new Government, expect to receive any assistance from them?’ Mr. Jones. ‘No.’ The Chairman. ‘Do you know whether or not your fellows were looking for any help?’ Mr. Jones. ‘I never knew that they were.’ Senator Frye. ‘As a matter of fact, did they give any assistance to the revolution at all?’ Mr. Jones. ‘No’.”

"The Chairman. ‘Let me ask you right there, is it your belief that that revolution would have occurred if the Boston had not arrived in the harbor?’ Mr. Jones. ‘I believe it would have gone on just the same if she had been away from the islands altogether.’"  (Morgan Report)

Jones served briefly as Minister of Finance in the Provisional government.  However, “The strain of office and my utter unfitness for the high position caused me to entirely break down, and that with the sudden death of my only son Edwin on July 10, 1898, made me unfit for business for several years, culminating in a severe sickness in November 1902, and it was not until 1906 that I felt like assuming any responsibility.” (Jones; LDS)

On February 26, 1902 Peter Cushman Jones, Ltd leased the vacant lot it owned at Merchant and Alakea Streets to Joseph William Podmore (a former English sailor who opened his own firm for insurance, shipping, commission and as agent for others, and, a real estate investor.)  He built the Podmore Building.

Jones later acquired the building and donated it to the Hawaiian Board of Missions for use as a permanent home. It was later used by the Advertiser Publishing Co. Ltd who published the Honolulu Advertiser there until 1928.

Jones Street, near University and Oʻahu was named for Peter Cushman Jones.  The name was changed when a prospective renter of a fine house on this street said: “I’ll not live in Honolulu on Jones Street!” The landlady got busy with a petition and had the name changed to Alaula Way (Way of the Dawn.)  (Clark)

Peter Cushman Jones died in Honolulu on April 23, 1922 at the age of 84.

The image shows Peter Cushman Jones (age 79.)  In addition, I have added other related images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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Pālama Settlement

Central Union Church dates back to the days of the Seaman’s Bethel Church in 1828.  It was formally founded in 1887 and it moved into its present location in 1924.

In addition to developing new institutions within the church, the congregation made great strides in the field of missionary work in the city of Honolulu, including the beginning of the present Pālama Settlement.

Pālama, then a sleepy neighborhood of neat little cottages and taro patches, was chosen by philanthropist and Central Union members Mr. and Mrs. PC Jones as the site for a new chapel.

On the makai side of King street, opposite Liliha Street, the chapel was dedicated on June 1, 1896, and presented to Central Union by the Joneses, on the condition that the church "maintain public preaching there on Sundays, a weekly prayer meeting, sustain a Sabbath school and also an occasional social for the residents of Pālama, the services to be conducted in the English language."

Located west of Nuʻuanu Stream, near Downtown Honolulu, Pālama was home to mostly working-class Hawaiian families.

Walter F. Dillingham, long active in philanthropic endeavors in Honolulu, once observed of Pālama:
“One must picture Honolulu at the end of the century with its mixture of races, their variety of foods, dress, cultures, customs and living habits.  All this gave Honolulu a character and personality not duplicated in any American city. The business section was composed mainly of low framed buildings with corrugated iron roofs near the water front. Streets were unpaved, horse-drawn vehicles, with the ox-cart was a common sight. Taro patches, duck ponds and even sugar cane grew in the section of Palama. It was in such a section that Palama Chapel was built and which grew to be Palama Settlement.” (HJH)

In 1900, as Honolulu health officials attempted to rid the nearby Chinatown area of bubonic plague, fire destroyed a four-block section. Displaced residents took up residence in newly built tenements in Pālama, changing the physical, social and economic make-up of the community.

The chapel's staff located housing for many of the displaced and took care of the injured and children. It also ministered to the needs of immigrants who moved into the Pālama area soon after arriving in the Islands.

Social worker James Arthur Rath, Sr. and his wife, Ragna Helsher Rath, turned Pālama Chapel into Pālama Settlement (in September 1906,) a chartered, independent, non-sectarian organization receiving contributions from the islands’ elite.

“… they called them ‘settlement houses,’ the philosophy being that the head worker, as they called them, settled in the community. Instead of going in to spend the day working and coming out, they settled in, raised their families there and in that way learned, one, what the people needed; two, gained their confidence so that they could help them fulfill their needs; and then, three, went ahead and designed programs for exactly what the people needed. So they were settlers and therefore they called them settlement houses. Which is what the origin of Pālama Settlement was because my father and my mother settled there and all five of us children were born and raised in our home in the settlement.” (Robert H. Rath, Sr)

The Raths established the territory’s first public nursing department, a day-camp for children with tuberculosis, a pure milk depot, a day nursery, a night school, and low-rent housing.

In 1908, an indoor swimming pool was opened, and a year later, a gymnasium and bowling alley were built above it. Later, outdoors, a playground, tennis court, and basketball court were added.

Also that year, a new Parish House was erected on an adjacent property at Richards Street, to be used for Sunday School classes and midweek meetings

After a territory-wide fund-raising effort, in 1925 Pālama Settlement moved to its present location with nine buildings spread over eight acres of land on Vineyard and Pālama streets.

Over the years, a medical clinic, an outpatient clinic and the Strong-Carter Dental Clinic were established along with annual circuses, athletic competitions, social and community-service clubs, boardinghouses for women and a preschool. Classes and events relating to music, arts, vocations, and athletics were also offered.

World War II and the postwar era brought about widespread changes in Hawai‘i’s social, economic, and political environment. These developments, in turn, led to changes in the way social agencies such as Pālama Settlement addressed community needs.

Observers noted that Pālama Settlement was departing from its original settlement house philosophy by offering programs for fees and catering to a broad cross section of people regardless of where they lived.

The 1960s and 1970s were periods of re-evaluation, adjustment, and growth, with the settlement's programs becoming more people-centered rather than activity-centered, stressing human and community needs as opposed to uncoordinated, departmentalized activities, following the large-scale social and economic programs being implemented nationally.

Civil rights and anti-poverty legislation brought large amounts of federal monies to Pālama Settlement for local programs geared to at-risk youth and community development.

Pālama Settlement - a smaller one due to the widening of Vineyard Boulevard and the construction of the H-1 Freeway - continues to exist as a nonprofit, nongovernmental agency dedicated to helping needy families and at-risk youths.

The image shows Pālama Chapel (centralunionchurch-org) circa 1897-1901.  In addition, I have added other Pālama Settlement images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook page.

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