Adelaida “Ida” Barboza Freitas
Centenarian served the church in humble ways all her long life
Hawaii Catholic Herald
Adelaida “Ida” Barboza Freitas, companion and helper for Hawaii’s Carmelite Sisters for more than 30 years, caretaker at the CYO Camp Hauula in its heyday, and next door neighbor to three bishops at St. Stephen Diocesan Center, died at her home April 10, two days after her 107th birthday.
Freitas led a joyful life of devotion to God, church, family and neighbor. A 2016 Hawaii Catholic Herald profile by her friends Steve and Deni Smith listed among her qualities, “honesty, dependability, hard work, self-discipline, hospitality and, of course, a great sense of humor.”
She said her secrets to a long and healthy life included praying the rosary, attending daily Mass, keeping busy, laughing frequently and eating lots of fish and plenty papaya.
Freitas would typically begin her day at 3 a.m. with 45 minutes of prayer, followed by coffee and breakfast. After breakfast, she would prepare for Mass in the Carmelite Monastery chapel on the grounds of St. Stephen Diocesan Center.
She would adorn the Carmelite chapel with her arrangements of flowers gathered from around her house and the monastery grounds. Her favorites were anthuriums and pink roses.
During the Christmas and Easter seasons, Mass was often followed by a busy morning in Ida’s second kitchen in her basement where she prepared her famous jellies, jams, butters and chutneys. Even the Obamas sampled her delicious wares, after Freitas’ niece, who worked at the Obamas’ vacation house in Kailua, told the president about them during one of their visits.
Freitas gave President Obama jars of lilikoi, strawberry guava and guava jelly, papaya-pineapple jam, guava jam, lilikoi butter and mango chutney. The president was so delighted he requested more be sent to the White House.
She also donated her flowers and preserves to the Koolau Senior Hui where they were sold to raise funds for senior activities. She was also known for her malassadas and Portuguese sweetbread.
If Freitas wasn’t busy cooking, gardening or decorating the chapel, she was probably cleaning her already tidy house, sewing or launching a new project.
Carmelite Sister Agnella Iu remembers Freitas for her floral arrangements, her cooking talent and her “generous spirit.”
Freitas moved to St. Stephen’s in 1985 shortly before the dedication of the Carmelites’ new chapel, which she immediately offered to decorate.
“Every Saturday she made three large flower arrangements from her garden or from our garden to be placed in front of the Blessed Sacrament, the crucifix, and the statue of Our Lady of Mount Carmel,” Sister Agnella said.
“People always admired the flower arrangements,” she said. “They said they would pay $200 for one of them!”
Freitas was also “thrilled to be our altar girl,” Sister Agnella said. She made altar clothes for the sisters as well.
She gave the sisters malassadas for Mardi Gras and jellies, jams and chutneys which they would share with friends.
“Each Christmas, she decorated the chapel lanai with our beautiful manger scene,” Sister Agnella said. For feasts of the Blessed Mother, she would provide flower crowns and leis to put on her statue in the chapel.
“When she was asked for the secret of her long life,” Sister Agnella recalled, “she always said, ‘Loving God.’”
“Ida always shared with us her joyful and generous spirit,” said the Carmelite. “She will be greatly missed, but we rejoice that she is in Heaven.”
Freitas was born to devout Catholic immigrant parents from Madeira, Portugal, Manuel and Maria Barboza, on April 8, 1912, seven days before the sinking of the Titanic, on a sugarcane plantation in Spreckelsville, Maui. Both parents had been widowed with five children between them before they married and had seven more, among them Ida. She was raised in Nahiku, near Hana.
It was real “old style” country living, washing the family’s clothes in the nearby stream, walking three miles to school with taro leaves for umbrellas, baking bread in an outdoor wood oven, cleaning the floor with coconut husk “brushes,” and working in the cane fields during the summer for 25 cents a day. Her mother, a plantation midwife, delivered her own babies. The family rosary was a daily ritual.
At 14, Freitas moved to Honolulu to work as a housekeeper. There at age 17 she met Alfred Freitas, a machinist whom she would marry seven months later at St. Patrick Church in Kaimuki. They raised three sons.
She spent her entire adult life serving the Lord and his church. The family lived in Pauoa Valley where she took in foster children and was very active at Blessed Sacrament Parish as a catechist, choir member, office worker and rectory housekeeper. At one point, she and fellow parishioner Pearl De Lima, mother of Frank, danced the Charleston on stage for a parish event.
From the late 1960s into the 1980s, she and her husband, who had retired after 40 years as a master machinist, were the on-site caretakers for the Catholic Youth Organization’s beachfront camp in Hauula. There they took care of housekeeping, plumbing, electrical repairs and carpentry. Freitas made it a point to go swimming every day. The CYO named her “Outstanding Volunteer of the Year” in 1982 for her many activities in support of the organization.
Two years before the diocese sold the camp in 1987, they moved into one of the former caretakers’ houses at St. Stephen Diocesan Center. Alfred died in 1999.
For her 100th birthday, which fell on Easter Sunday 2012, Bishop Larry Silva celebrated Mass with a blessing for Freitas in the Carmelite Convent chapel. In announcing her passing the day after she died, the bishop wrote “May the Lord continue to bless with eternal life and joy this woman whom he blessed with such a long earthly life and with such joy!”
Freitas’ ohana includes three sons, eight grandchildren, 10 great grandchildren and several great-great grandchildren.
Her funeral is scheduled for May 7 at St. Anthony Church, Kailua. Visitation is at 10 a.m., Mass at 11 a.m. followed by a reception. Burial is at 2 p.m. at Hawaiian Memorial Park.
