An undated photo of Kalaupapa residents Nancy Brede, who died in October, and husband Jimmy who died March 10. (Photo courtesy of Valerie Monson)
The deaths, months apart, of Jimmy and Nancy Brede bring their 41-year marriage to an end
By Valerie Monson
Special to the Herald
Several years ago, Jimmy Brede sat in the shade outside Leahi Hospital on Oahu waiting for the van to drive up. When it did, the door opened and out came his wife, Nancy.
“There she is!” Jimmy sang out as if it was the first time he’d laid eyes on her. “She’s going to be 87, but she’s still my Sweet Sixteen.”
One of the great love stories of Kalaupapa — the 41-year marriage of Jimmy and Nancy Brede — has come to an end with their deaths fewer than five months apart. Nancy died October 17, 2015, at the age of 92 at Leahi. Jimmy, 86, followed her on March 10.
No one was surprised that after Nancy’s death, Jimmy would soon join her.
“He kept talking about how Aunty Nancy was visiting him, that she was in the room with him,” said Colin Brede, Jimmy’s nephew, describing his last visit three days before his uncle died. “He said Aunty was waiting for him. So I believe he just wanted to be with her again.”
Separate paths of pain
The Bredes’ love story came years after they journeyed on separate paths of pain and loneliness that everyone sent to Kalaupapa experienced when their families were forced to give them up because they were diagnosed with leprosy. Nancy was first, being taken from her family in Kona in 1936 when she was 13. She was sent to Kalaupapa shortly thereafter.
Jimmy was just a child, too. When he was forced to leave his home for Kalihi Hospital, a bittersweet reunion awaited him. His younger brother, David, who was taken from the family at the age of 6, was already at Kalihi.
The late Helen Keao recalled the occasion.
“We could hear it when David and Jimmy met,” she said in an interview. “We could hear them crying. The men folks said they were in the bathroom. Maybe they were crying because they hadn’t seen each other for a while or maybe because they’d been taken from home.’’
Jimmy and David were on the same ship that took 34 people, including all of the youngsters, from Kalihi to Kalaupapa on May 15, 1942, because of wartime concerns of the hospital’s proximity to Pearl Harbor.
Jimmy remembered how crowded the coastline was that spring day as word swept through the community that so many children were arriving.
“The fathers and mothers knew there were all these kids coming in,” he said. “So many of them never had the opportunity to hold their own children so they were waiting for us.”
One couple, David and Annie Kupele, who had all 12 children born to them at Kalaupapa taken away at birth, welcomed David and Jimmy to be part of their family.
“They became like our mother and father,” said Jimmy.
A knock on the door
Both Jimmy and Nancy grew up and married others at Kalaupapa. After those unions ended, they eventually found each other, but not until middle age.
Nancy’s son, Clifford Gollero, described how it happened.
“After my father died, my Mom was not interested in a social relationship,” explained Gollero. “However, a social dance was the trigger that brought them together. Not in the fact that they danced together, but Jimmy wondering why Mom was not attending the dances.
“He got up the courage to leave the dance and knock on her door.”
Even though Nancy was nearly 50, Jimmy had found his “Sweet Sixteen.” Once Nancy convinced Jimmy to give up some of his bad habits, they were inseparable. She also gave him one of his greatest gifts: she taught him how to read.
Their wedding day in 1974 — October 11 — would later have great significance. It was on that same day 35 years later, in 2009, that Father Damien was canonized.
The Bredes were snappy dressers, loved to cook or eat out (when they were in cities) and were known for their uncanny good luck in Las Vegas.
They were with each other in the good times — and the times that tested them.
Jimmy credited Nancy with saving his life when it was feared that he was dying some 20 years ago. She never left his side at the hospital and all but willed him to live.
“Aunty Nancy stayed next to his bed and helped him get better,” said Colin. “Uncle Jimmy said if it wasn’t for Nancy, he wouldn’t be here. She brought him back.”
After that, the couple chose to live at Leahi so Jimmy would be closer to medical care.
Nancy felt she had become a better person because of all the tribulations endured by those affected by leprosy, the injustices they faced, the discrimination and the physical pain of the disease. She also had to give up her children who were born to her at Kalaupapa.
Gollero, who lives in Utah, remembered how hard it was for his mother to talk about that.
“Every time she mentioned it, tears would flow from her eyes,” he said.
Nancy thought all the tribulations she experienced made her better.
“I think we’re stronger than other people,” she said, “because of what we’ve been through — and our faith. You have to keep your faith.”
To make that point, she opened her purse and pulled out a miniature Bible, perhaps one-inch square. It was a gift from three sisters on the Mainland who were her pen pals.
Kukui nuts and crosswords
Jimmy was probably most well known as a driver and guide for Damien Tours at Kalaupapa. He blended his knowledge about the settlement with his own style of humor where he introduced himself by pointing out that he “was no relation to the Brady Bunch” and noted that, “Yes, I do accept tips, by all means, yes.”
He was Deputy Sheriff at Kalaupapa and, during his free time, made jewelry and key rings from kukui nuts. His partner was Mother Nature.
“I make a hole in the kukui nut and then I bury it and let the ants do their work,” he explained. “They clean it out better than me.”
Nancy had such a beautiful singing voice that Helen Keao insisted that no one sang “The Sunset of Kalaupapa” better than Nancy. She read the Honolulu Star-Advertiser daily and was a whiz at crossword puzzles. Cheri Shimose-Eng, director of nursing for Hale Mohalu at Leahi Hospital, said Nancy always did the crossword in the newspaper — and timed herself.
“She could often do it in 15 minutes or less,” said Shimose-Eng. “Every so often she would say ‘Call Sheldon (Loui, the social worker at Leahi)’ to say she had done it in nine minutes.”
Nancy’s death last year left a hole so deep in Jimmy that — without her at his bedside — he was simply unable to heal.
So earlier this month, Nancy came to get him, making sure their love story would live on in the next realm.
Before he died, Jimmy made arrangements that his ashes would be mixed with Nancy’s and then scattered off the shore of the place where their love began: Kalaupapa.
